


From That Which We Cannot Hide

by PencilsDown



Series: Life on Earth [4]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bellamy mentioned, Broken Families, Broken Promises, Drama, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Family, Family Drama, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Finn mentioned, Fix-It of Sorts, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Lexa Mentioned, Love, M/M, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Motherhood, Other, Post-Canon Fix-It, Teen Angst, Wells Mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:15:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27412585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PencilsDown/pseuds/PencilsDown
Summary: The immediate physical threats may be gone, but that doesn't mean there's peace on Earth. There's no one left to run from but themselves and their pasts, but not even that can be escaped any longer. There are no distractions left. The reckoning is here.
Relationships: Abby Griffin & Clarke Griffin, Abby Griffin & Raven Reyes, Clarke Griffin & Jake Griffin, Clarke Griffin & John Murphy, Clarke Griffin & Madi, Clarke Griffin & Raven Reyes, Clarke Griffin & Wells Jaha, Echo & Raven Reyes, Emori & John Murphy (The 100), Eric Jackson/Nathan Miller, Finn Collins & Clarke Griffin, Gaia & Indra (The 100), Hope Diyoza & Jordan Jasper Green, John Murphy & Raven Reyes, Madi & John Murphy (The 100), Madi/Raven Reyes, Octavia Blake & Clarke Griffin & Raven Reyes, Octavia Blake & Hope Diyoza, Octavia Blake & Indra, Octavia Blake & Madi
Series: Life on Earth [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1964974
Comments: 44
Kudos: 26





	1. The Evolution of Clarke Griffin

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back and sporting my first multi-chapter installment to this series! I have at least 4 chapters planned, two of which will be posted immediately. Please remember that this is all just what I envision happened after the series finale.

_Your instincts will tell you to take care of everyone else first, just like your father…._

When Clarke Griffin was 4 years old, she would wake in the middle of the night to the sound of monsters in her room. Monsters who moaned and groaned continuously – never taking a break to eat or sleep. One night, one of the monsters groaned and rattled so loudly that it sent her flying from her bed and into the room of her parents.

Clarke climbed into her mother’s empty side of the bed and shook her father awake, chancing a glance over her shoulder when she heard the rattling again. Her father opened his eyes and immediately wrapped an arm around his daughter, pressing a kiss to the top of her head as he scooted himself into a seated position. If Jake Griffin was ever annoyed by these late-night wake up calls, he never let it show. He always greeted his daughter with a smile, no matter what time the clock read or what was happening around them.

The little girl launched into a frantic tale about how she and Wells overheard the older kids talking about the ghosts who floated outside of the ship and the monsters who roamed within, groaning endlessly through the day and into the night. That was the night Clarke Griffin learned about the thrusters that kept their home in orbit, and that it was her daddy’s job to make sure they kept groaning so that she would be safe and sound in their home for a long time to come.

When Clarke was satisfied with her newfound knowledge of the noise, she asked about the ghosts that were said to be floating outside of the ship.

Her father told her there was no such thing as ghosts and tucked her into his side before the child could push any further.

-

Clarke grew up spending a lot of her extra time with her mother in medical. Abby became Chief when Clarke was around 10 years old, so the kid found herself spending more and more of her free time there. She and Wells agreed that he would become an engineer like his dad because Wells didn’t know enough about his mother to follow in her footsteps.

That left Clarke to follow her own mother’s footsteps into medicine. She and Wells were going to be a dynamic duo; he would fix the ship and she would fix the people inside of it. Clarke was actually relieved when this agreement was made. Caring for people was something she enjoyed a lot more than caring for a giant machine. At least the people could talk back and say thank you. Wells argued that machines could talk back and thank them in their own way, which just made Clarke roll her eyes as she continued organizing the antibiotics in the medicine cabinet.

Clarke had puffed out her chest and beamed in barely-contained excitement when she found out that her mother was _finally_ giving her a task that actually seemed important instead of just counting bandages and winding ace wraps back around the roll. At the tender age of 10, Clarke was being granted limited access to the ship’s medicine cabinet with strict instructions about counting bottles of antibiotics and organizing them into classes based on which medication was best for treating which common ailment.

The girl took her task very seriously, so she shooed away her best friend in the name of concentration and was diligently following procedure as she proceeded to lock the cabinet and pocket the key to give to her mother once back in their quarters. As she turned the light off and prepared to leave the room, she heard glass shattering behind her. Clarke turned just in time to lock eyes with a man grabbing a bottle of antibiotics through the shattered window of the cabinet door.

“M-my son…he’s sick. They say he won’t – he won’t m-make it,” the man looked at Clarke with pleading eyes as the little blonde just turn and ran.

When asked if she saw anything, she simply shook her head and said she’d already left the lab as instructed. She never did find out what happened to the man’s son.

That night, her nightmares revolved around a father sitting at his son’s bedside as he pleaded with the boy to swallow the pills while the boy cried out in protest. When Clarke woke to her father’s gentle shaking of her shoulder, she couldn’t bring herself to explain what her nightmare had been about. But Jake didn’t need to be told. Somehow, he just knew. When asked if Clarke had mentioned anything to him about the incident, he just shook his head the same way his daughter had the day before.

-

Clarke was fifteen when she tested into medical and began her actual rotations with her mother and her mother’s young protege, Jackson. Since Clarke had been groomed to be a doctor basically her entire life, her mother trusted her enough to give her space and even her own patients to see.

The teenager was in charge of non-life-threatening injuries. One of her first patients was a 3-year-old girl who’d been a little too eager to get to the mess hall and winded up with a pretty nasty gash from her shoulder almost to her elbow. Clarke had half a mind to ask her mother or Jackson to stitch the little girl up, but she knew the flu was making its rounds again and their hands were full trying to prevent yet another ship-wide pandemic.

Clarke had taken a calming breath and plastered on the biggest smile she could manage while she tried to seem as cheery as possible before telling the little girl she was going to stitch her wound closed. The girl’s mother looked at Clarke with wide eyes as she remained silent and tightened her hold on her daughter, knowing that she had to be kept still for what was to come.

The young apprentice pulled up the family’s ID based on their station and room number and frowned when she saw they had reached their allotment of localized anesthetic for the year. The look on Clarke’s face as she turned back around must have gave her away because the girl’s mom immediately jumped into a hurried explanation. They were from Farm Station and her husband had had an incident with the equipment a couple of months ago. He didn’t make it, despite Abby’s efforts. The mother had been doing her best to be cautious since then, but it was hard with an energetic toddler.

Clarke just listened to the mother’s story as she included the local anesthetic in the supplies she was gathering. When the girl’s mother saw what she was doing, she screamed at Clarke to put it back. Screamed that the pain her daughter would feel today would be nothing compared to what she’d feel tomorrow when her mother was floated and the little girl was left an orphan. The child just wailed in pain and fear as her mother panicked and tried to flee the room. Clarke did her best to block the door and assured the woman that she’d put the numbing agent back if she calmed down and let her clean and stitch the child’s wound.

That night, Clarke’s nightmares involved the piercing screams of a child being held down as Clarke’s own shaking hand weaved the needle in and out of the tiny arm.

-

When Abby arrived home from medical the following morning, she noticed her daughter was sat on the couch - staring blankly ahead at a TV that wasn’t turned on. Her daughter was also more quiet than usual throughout the day, which Abby chalked up to teenage angst.

That night, Clarke asked her mother how many people died when they had the means to save them. She asked her mother how many children had been orphaned because their families had run out of their _allotment_ of medicinal resources. How many preventable deaths happened in the name of sharing resources. She also finally learned the truth about what happened to orphaned children.

_It’s not that simple, Clarke. We can’t just give children to childless couples. It’s easier if they’re taken to the Sky Box under crowdsourcing laws until they become of age. Their education continues while there and then they get to test into a field like everyone else. It’s not like they’re floated at 18 like actual delinquents._

That was also the night Clarke decided she never wanted to bear a child. She couldn’t accept that there were children out there who were being treated like criminals simply because their parents weren’t around to care for them. She didn’t want to bring a child into this way of life. When she shared this with Wells the next day, he told her that things would be different for her child. She would take over her mother’s position one day, marry well, and have nothing to worry about.

_Careful, Wells, you’re one parent loss away from the Sky Box._

The rest of their chess game went by in silence, and Clarke dreamt of lonely children locked behind bars that night.

-

Sixteen was anything but sweet for Clarke. Every time she closed her eyes, all she saw was her father flashing her one last smile before he was sucked into the atmosphere, becoming a floating ghost she’d feared all those years before.

She’d bolt upright in her cell, crying out for her father as a guard would pound on her door to demand that she quiet down. The teen would pant to accommodate her racing heart as she’d wipe the cold sweat from her brow and sob her apologies into the night, hoping beyond all hope that somehow one of her parents could hear it. Feel it.

Some nights she’d dreamt that she was floated right alongside of her father – their eyes meeting one last time out in space as they gasped for oxygen that wasn’t there. Other nights she would just see a corpse wearing his blue sweater float by her skylight behind her closed lids. She’d count the holes in his sweater every time she had that dream.

She was no longer Clarke Griffin, the future Chief of Medical. She was Prisoner 319. And she finally knew what the older kids had meant over a decade ago about the monsters roaming within the walls of the ship.

-

Clarke’s nightmares took on a life of their own once she was dropped to the ground. Filled with two-headed deer, absent pulses of boys who’d gotten out of their seats, Wells….

Oh God, _Wells_. The worst ones had been when she’d hear him calling out to her, but no matter how long or hard she searched, all she could ever find were two of his fingers.

She’d wake with a start as tears stained her face and she realized that those fingers had been all that remained. She’d go outside of the walls and spend the rest of the night by his grave. A grave only Octavia bothered to help her dig, and that was only out of pity for Clarke. Nobody missed him. Nobody knew just how incredible he truly was. Now nobody ever would know. Seeing was believing, and the whole camp was robbed of seeing just how amazing Wells Jaha is. Was.

Her nightmares morphed into something even uglier as she’d watch a little girl throw herself from the edge of a cliff on what seemed to be a repeating loop. She’d feel the wet stickiness of Finn’s blood coating her hand that she couldn’t wash off no matter how hard she scrubbed. She’d see the charred bodies of 300 grounders mixed in with the bodies of her friends – Finn and Bellamy included.

Clarke could push it all aside during her waking hours. She powered through because she had to. She avoided sleep because she had to. When she’d inevitably pass out from exhaustion, she’d only see blood dripping from the corner of Lexa’s mouth as the blonde pressed her hands over the fatal wound. She’d see the blistered faces of children and their families who were just trying to enjoy a meal before they were irradiated. She’d see her mother and friends trapped underground while her other friends asphyxiated in space because the signal never arrived.

She saw all of it. Over and over again. Her subconscious seemingly incapable of allowing her any reprieve or escape from it all. She thought it couldn’t get any worse. That the horrors she saw behind her closed eyes had already gone beyond anything even the sickest mind could imagine.

Then she became a mother.

-

_You really are the Angel of Death!_

The Great _Wanheda_ and her fear of nightmares. Or, rather, her biggest fear of her nightmares coming true. Nightmares that saw Madi as just a hallucination her mind conjured up to protect itself during years of loneliness and isolation. She’d cling to the girl for hours after she’d wake up, and Madi would always let her. Even at barely six years old, Madi could sense that the older woman needed her just as much as Madi needed the older woman.

So whenever Clarke would call out in the night, whenever the older woman would thrash about and tears would run from her still-closed eyes, Madi would hop onto Clarke’s big bed and just launch herself on top of the woman. Clarke would usually wake with a start, but always took Madi into her arms and didn’t let go. Other times Clarke would stay asleep, but instinctively wrap herself around the tiny child in her bed as her breathing would even out until morning.

Becoming a mother – especially Madi’s mother – brought more nightmares than Clarke ever thought possible. Ones that saw the girl injured or sick. Others that saw her lost or alone. They were the worst nightmares Clarke had ever had. Madi only had her and she only had Madi. There was no one to turn to to stitch Madi’s arm or see her through the flu. There was no one else to hold her when she cried out into the night. They were each other’s lifeline, and they clung to each other for dear life.

It only got worse once the bunker was opened and Madi took the Flame. All the pleasant dreams Clarke had about opening the bunker and her friends returning from space had turned into a living nightmare. She felt like she couldn’t even blink, let alone manage to fall asleep. If she slept, Octavia or Diyoza would snatch Madi away. Madi would meet the same end as every Commander before her. Clarke told herself she’d sleep once things were settled.

Even as Clarke shared a bed with her daughter in the master suite of the farmhouse, she’d only see her mother’s hand pointing a gun at the head of her own grandchild. She’d hear her mother’s voice calling out to her as she was sucked out into the atmosphere the same way Clarke’s father had been. She would see Simone Lightbourne wearing her mother’s body like a Halloween costume. She’d been asleep for 125 years, so she told herself she’d survive a few more sleepless nights.

-

Clarke hasn’t had a peaceful night’s rest since arriving on Earth and finding her returned family. This was the first night she’d managed to close her eyes and not see a skeleton wearing white with a bullet hole and dried blood surrounding the chest area of the garment. The first night she couldn’t hear herself screaming at her daughter’s lifeless body as she stared into her child’s unfocused eyes.

_SAY SOMETHING!_

This was the first night in the 2 weeks that they’ve been back that Clarke was having a dreamless sleep, but something still managed to pull her from her unconscious state. Clarke groaned and opened her eyes against the soft glow of the candlelight as her ears picked up on the cries from the bed only a few feet away.

_Madi._

Clarke was up in an instant and at her daughter’s side, her heart in a vice grip as she took in how pale and sweaty her child was as she fought with some unseen monster.

“Madi, baby, hey, wake up for me. Madi, come on, I need you to wake up. You’re okay. I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere. Wake up, honey,” Clarke had moved both of her hands to cradle the younger girl’s face as she gently moved the girl’s face towards her own and called out to the child.

Clarke smiled as Madi’s neck slowly stopped thrashing from side-to-side and the kid’s brow smoothed out just a bit. Clarke wore a gentle smile on her face as Madi’s eyes fluttered open.

“Hey you,” was all Clarke managed to get out as Madi’s eyes widened in fear and the girl ripped her face from her mother’s hands as she used her hands and feet to scramble back as far into the corner of her bed as the walls would allow.

“Madi what…” Clarke was cut off by her daughter’s screams.

“Madi, MADI, you’re safe! I’m right here,” Clarke leaned closer towards her child only to watch in horror as the girl flinched away from her.

“Madi, Clarke?!” Raven burst through the door with her beloved tire iron in hand as she looked towards the pair and then frantically scanned the room for any threats. Finding none, her focus drifted back to the mother and daughter.

What Raven saw scared her more than any intruder could.

Clarke stood frozen in place by Madi’s bed as the girl eyed her mother wildly, as if she were prey backed into a corner by an attacker. Her breaths were coming in ragged pants as one small hand was held protectively in front of her and the other braced itself against one of the walls.

“Clarke, is everything okay here?” Raven could already guess the answer to that question, but she needed some context as to what the hell was happening here.

The mechanic quickly realized she wasn’t going to get any answers as her friend simply turned towards her with a shuddering breath and tears racing down her cheeks before fleeing the room with only two parting words.

“Help Madi.”


	2. Raven Reyes: Picked First

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise this all ties together and ends well. Bear with me! To those still around, thanks for coming along for the ride.

_Pretty sure my mom had me just so she could trade my rations._

Raven Reyes knew what the deal was from a young age. She knew what hunger, rejection, loneliness, and pain were. It took her a little longer to experience love. Love that came from someone who hadn’t even been obligated to give it.

But before the love story she’d started with Finn, there was education. Numbers, fitness, puzzles, memorization, order to all the chaos. Order to _her_ chaos. Raven was rejected by her own mother, so she made damn sure everyone else had a reason to want her the most. Even if that reason was just for everyone else’s own personal gain.

Everyone else except for Finn. He hadn’t started out with anything to gain. Sure, she could play with him when they were kids, help him with his homework if he needed it, and share his bed when they decided they were ready to take that step, but he’d never asked for or expected anything more from her. All he wanted was for her to be happy and to succeed.

He’d picked Raven first before it was the popular thing to do, and she could never forget that.

Even when she saw the replica of a deer made out of scrap metal. Even when she saw the way Finn, the only family she’d ever had until that point, looked at the blue-eyed blonde who was the complete opposite of Raven in both looks and personality.

He’d never looked at her that way even when he’d _only_ had her to look at that way.

And sure, Raven could understand that Clarke didn’t know about her. That was on Finn. Didn’t make it much easier to look at the girl, though. Didn’t make it feel any better to not be picked first anymore by the most important person in her life.

Clarke had a mother up in space who was putting her daughter first. Rumor has it that she also had a best friend get arrested because he put the blonde first. With all these people to put Clarke first, why did Finn have to join the ranks?

So no, Raven didn’t handle the rejection well. She was going to blow that bridge to kingdom come, knowing that she’d contracted Murphy’s virus and may very well lose her life in the process.

That didn’t seem to matter anymore. If she was no longer first, then she was last. She didn’t want to be last again. She didn’t want to deal with the lingering pain that came with rejection of that magnitude.

She was going to be the one to blow that bridge. The explosion that would kill a few grounders and lead to the slow, agonizing death of a child. She had every intention of doing it, but she was too weak to carry it out. That was the only thing that was stopping her. No moral qualms or second thoughts.

As Raven lie awake in her bunk, she couldn’t help but to think of Murphy’s words from their argument earlier that day.

_News flash, Raven, but your soul was compromised long before you set foot in that nuclear reactor._

Echo and Niylah were both in a deep sleep in their respective bunks, having celebrated Jordan’s first successful large batch of moonshine by drinking entirely too much of it.

Murphy had been the first to indulge, so he was feeling the effects long before Raven ever got to sample the product. Murphy had found out about Raven and Emori’s little conversation about Raven taking them to Bardo instead of getting Emori to Sanctum. Despite Raven denying Emori’s request, Murphy was drunk and angry enough to lash out at the mechanic too.

After that, Raven just shook her head and stomped off, no longer having any desire to join the little booze buddies circle that was forming. She wanted to hit something. She wanted to hit Murphy. But the more she thought about it, the more his words bounced around and started mingling with old memories.

_It’s not rocket science._

Raven had been the one to help them rig that ring of fire around the dropship. Clarke may have had the idea, but Raven’s brain was what was going to ultimately make it happen. But it _had_ been Clarke’s idea and Jasper was the one to actually _pull_ the switch and she _did_ have a bullet in her at that time, thanks to Murphy.

But she loved the plan and walked them all through the process. They couldn’t have made it happen without her. Her ego had allowed her to see that as a source of pride, not one of the few first cracks in her soul.

She was also the one who took that illegal space walk that cost the Ark 3 months’ worth of oxygen. _But_ she hadn’t known the Ark was dying _and_ she risked her life to come to the ground and try and get word back to space. Bellamy was the one who took her radio. If anyone on the ground was at fault for The Culling, it was him. At least that’s what her anger told her. She hadn’t recognized that as the first crack in her soul.

_Deciding who lives and who dies is your specialty._

Raven had slid that blade to Clarke to use on Lexa. She knew it would start a war. She knew Clarke would likely be killed on site while her own people were slaughtered in the process. But all she cared about was Finn. Finn, the boy who’d been the original person to put her first. The boy who was her family by choice. She was choosing to sacrifice everyone just at the off chance of saving him. She still couldn’t believe the cry that was heard as his head dropped actually came from her.

_You’re the only murderer here!_

The plan at Mount Weather had went wrong on so many levels, but she harbored no guilt for the 381 people who lost their lives so that she and her people could live. She didn’t see their faces. She didn’t care that many were innocent. Her brain was able to process them all as monsters because Clarke bore the rest. Clarke had also saved her from death by 1,000 cuts even after Raven had decked her and called her a murderer. Clarke just stood there and took it.

_Clarke Griffin and her impossible choices…._

Raven was the one who took the key to escape her physical pain. Her taking the key lead to Abby taking the key and it just had a domino effect. Raven had prided herself on being such a strong, badass individual, but she let the pain break her. She let her own ego break her. Then she was the one to show Clarke the kill switch in the City of Light. A place of peace, according to Jasper. But he blamed Clarke for taking that away from him too. I mean, after all, she was the one who pulled the lever. But Raven was the one to put it there. Clarke never said that, though, she just took whatever abuse was thrown her way.

She demanded that list of 100 names from Clarke. _The new 100._ Raven told herself that if she was in charge of repairing the ship, she was saving what lives she could. She was doing her part. She left it to Clarke to decide just which lives those would be. So Clarke made the list as Raven barked out orders. Clarke faced Jasper's fury that turned into Monty's fury that turned into the whole camp surrounding Clarke Griffin with glaring eyes. Raven didn't have time to play politics. She also didn't have time to acknowledge that little pang of guilt in the pit of her stomach as she heard the echo of Monty's voice read the list over a loud speaker.

Raven sent Clarke to the satellite with a pack and some instructions. She was the one who said they had no more time. She was the one who made Bellamy close the rocket’s door. She got the Ring up and running, but that was only thanks to Clarke’s sacrifice.

_Guess she’s not up for Mother of the Year…._

A sacrifice that seemed to be forgotten all too soon as she watched Clarke finally make a selfish decision. Selfish being an arguable term, as she was doing everything to protect her child. A child everyone else seemed fine with throwing to the wolves. Raven can now admit that they had no real plan to actually protect Madi when they went to grab her in that church. They just needed her to get her army to fight. She was a means to an end, but nobody but Clarke thought of it that way in the moment.

She mercilessly targeted Clarke for trying to protect her own child while she was ready to bomb Shallow Valley, and, in turn, her friends, out of existence to save her new love interest’s leg. _And the cracks just keep coming._

_You say you’re sorry, and then you do it again._

Do what again? Try and save everyone despite the utter lack of gratitude and at the cost of her own soul and sanity?

Of course Clarke was the one to stop Abby’s drug addiction while the doctor had tortured Raven to get more drugs. Of course Clarke would be looked upon to lead them again after what they perceived as her betrayal in the valley. Of course Shaw was dead and Clarke was alive because of his sacrifice. And it all pissed Raven the fuck off. Because Clarke Griffin still seemed to get chosen first, and that made her an easy target for Raven’s wrath.

_Whatever happens, Clarke Griffin doesn’t break._

Until she’s just killed her best friend to save her child and destroys a helmet to keep what’s left of her family in one piece. Until she’s killing Cadogan during the test for all mankind and sprinting back to her daughter to spend what they assume to be their last moments with the locked-in child.

_You just hum along like a finely tuned engine._

At this moment, Raven realizes she’s done the same. Only her engine was fueled by denial, not a sense of duty. She’s felt like she’s broken before, yet she’s always managed to push forward. It may be for different reasons than Clarke, but it’s in a forward direction all the same.

_You’re a good person. Maybe the best I know._

Clarke always just took the abuse. She could be insulted and still turn around and comfort the one who’d insulted her. Raven had never apologized to Clarke for any of her words. She’d never really truly thanked Clarke for so many things. What Raven _had_ done was not give up on Madi when Sheidheda was killing her. What she _had_ done was return to Earth so Clarke wouldn’t be alone.

Clarke had been there for Raven. She had sacrificed her soul so that Raven could convince herself that her own was still intact. She had taken the abuse and mostly taken it lying down. She managed to comfort Raven even in dire situations and they stood by each other when it was all said and done.

Raven needed Clarke to know how truly sorry she was. She needed her to know how grateful she was for her friendship, sacrifice, and strength over the years. She needed her to know that she understands now. At least she understands some of it. But, in typical Raven fashion, she wasn’t going to tell Clarke, she had to show her.

Just as she was thinking about how she’d convey all of this to her friend, she heard screaming from the room next door.

_Madi._

Raven grabbed the tire iron she kept under her bed. The one she didn’t really have a good reason for since there was less than 20 people left in the universe and they just so happened to be her family. But old habits die hard.

She races to Madi and Clarke’s room and immediately starts to assess the situation – all thoughts of apologies and grand gestures long gone as she stands ready to fight off whatever is threatening her niece and friend.

If Raven’s soul wasn’t already cracked, she is sure that what she sees finally manages to shatter it.

Clarke just runs by her after she asks what’s happened.

“Help Madi.”

And Raven is left alone with a child who looks as if she’s just seen a ghost.

_Maybe she has._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My goal is to get the next chapter written and posted either tonight or tomorrow. We shall see. Hope you enjoy!


	3. The Alliance of Cockroaches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke and Murphy find they have more in common when they actually just listen to one another.

_Shut up, Murphy._

Only his mother called him John. She’d spit his name out with such bitterness that he came to hate the sound of it coming from anyone. Being silenced was something Murphy had become accustomed to following his father’s death. His mother no longer had any interest in anything he had to say. She really had no interest in him at all.

_Beat it, Murphy._

She’d look at him with so much resentment that he used to wish he could just vanish on the spot. Right there before her eyes. Maybe that would finally make her feel something other than indifference towards him. Maybe she’d finally feel the pain she was inflicting upon him. Or maybe she’d be relieved that he was finally gone. He’d never get the chance to know because she drank herself to death long before he’d had the courage to ask.

Those thoughts were what finally lead to Murphy becoming, well, _Murphy_. Angry and bitter and outspoken and uncaring was a well-constructed wall that surrounded the pain he couldn’t manage to face. The rejection and guilt he’d never wanted to face.

His father was floated for trying to save his sick son. The antibiotics he stole wouldn’t do any good, unbeknownst to the desperate man, but his son survived anyway. His father was floated over one goddamn pill that didn’t do any good. He lost his mother that day as well. The mother who blamed him for his father’s death. He had learned to blame himself for a while, too, until he found another target.

He’d only wished the guard and his family had suffered more than just the loss of a few possessions in that fire. For that guard’s family to hurt the way his family hurt. To break the way his broke.

He corrected the guards in the Sky Box who’d refer to him by his first and last name. Everyone else already knew him as Murphy, given that he shared the first name and same last initial with Mbege his entire life.

_Just Murphy to you, assholes. Save yourselves some energy to help you produce more of that testosterone you definitely lack. Is that a shock baton or are you just happy to see me?_

-

He’d never wanted to hear his first name again. At least not until she said it.

She’d said it at first to get under his skin, and it had worked. He could see that her exterior was just as rough as his own. That her walls were built just as high as his own. He recognized that look in her eyes because it was like looking in a mirror. That was a survivor’s look. A look that said yeah, life sucks, but they were going to fight like hell to stick around.

They wouldn’t give everyone the satisfaction of finally being rid of them. What fun would it be if they did that?

Before he knew it, she was past his wall. She was calling him John and he was not only allowing it but insisting that she never refer to him by any other name. The usual anger that swirled within him mingled with her own, and, without even realizing it, his anger was morphing into something different. Something lighter. At least when it came to her.

And, for the first time since his father’s death, Murphy felt something other than anger and guilt. He cared for this girl with the hard exterior. That care only grew the more time he spent with her. For the first time in his short life, John Murphy was in love.

The kind of love people move mountains for. The kind of love he’d do anything and everything to hold onto because he realized the feeling was so much more satisfying than all of the anger he’d harbored.

It was the kind of love that had the power to erase his mother’s words and neglect. The kind of love that eased the stinging in his throat from where he’d been hanged to the cheers of an audience. It eased what had been a constant visual of a child stepping off the edge of a cliff at what may as well have been his own insistence.

The kind that allowed him to dance along to music and show that he actually had talents and a personality underneath the hoard of bitterness.

And then he learned that, after everything they’d been through, that same girl was ready to throw it all away. She was ready to leave him, and she’d begged one of his best friends to help her do it.

Murphy took yet another swig of the bottle he insisted would not be shared. It didn’t have quite the kick that Monty’s moonshine always had, but damn was it a helluva lot smoother. And it was managing to do the trick just the same. He stumbled ever so slightly as he thought back to that conversation.

_I was dying, John. I was dying and I knew it. We all knew it. The difference was that I was the only one who was able to accept it. Our friends were in trouble. They needed your help. Madi needed your help. I needed you all to let me go and be the heroes I knew you were. I needed Raven to do what Clarke would’ve done so that you could all be okay._

_Heroes?! You think I give a shit about being some goddamn hero?! You think Clarke sees herself as a hero?! Goddamnit, Emori, you don’t get it. Nothing – none of this means anything to me without you. I can’t do this shit without you. I refuse to. I put your goddamn consciousness into my own head just to spend my last moments with you. And I’d do it all over again. I’d choose you all over again. Bardo be damned. Our friends be damned. I’d let the world burn around us if it meant I got that one last dance with you. But you were ready to leave me._

And then he’d stormed off. He couldn’t even look at her. He couldn’t handle the way his voice cracked as he fought back sobs to the point where he felt sick. He fled from her. He flew past Raven, who’d been standing nearby, caught in the crossfire of the exchange. He broke out into a run as the wind blew the tears back across his face.

He ran to the bunker and grabbed Picasso’s water bowl. He grabbed whatever cloth material he could find. Then he headed back to the rubble where the worst moment of his life took place.

He choked out yet another sob as he saw the dried black blood covering the floor, the rocks, and that rod. That fucking rod that tried to take away the only thing in his life that he felt truly mattered.

Murphy poured the water from the bowl over the largest spot, poured some of the alcohol from the bottle onto a piece of cloth, and dropped to his knees as he began to scrub away at the bloodstains Emori had left behind.

He scrubbed and scrubbed only to feel like the stains were increasing in size just to mock him. Some of the caked-on blood was now in flakes covering his hands. He wasn’t even sure how long he’d been at it when he heard a disturbance behind him.

He didn’t even bother to turn around as he just continued scrubbing, “Come back to the scene of the crime, huh? Ready to leave me again?”

The ragged breathing behind him had Murphy dropping the stained cloth and finally turning around. He hadn’t expected to come across anyone who would look to be in worse shape than he felt, but there stood Clarke Griffin, looking every bit as broken as his heart seemed to be.

She was panting as if she’d been running. Her eyes were red and swollen yet wide at the same time. Her face was blotchy from what he knew had to be her furiously wiping her sleeve at her cheeks.

Her eyes met his own for a fraction of a second before she took in the sight of the rubble around him. It was only then that he looked away from her face long enough to notice she held something behind her left side. Something just out of view.

The blonde was the first to break the silence, “I heard something from the hallway,” she quickly explains, not even bothering to come up with some excuse about this being a welfare check, “What the hell are you doing, Murphy?”

Murphy finally drops from his knees and stretches his legs out straight in front of him, feeling the ache in his knees for the first time now that he’s been diverted from his task. He lets his back lean against a large piece of rubble as his head follows in a lull.

Clarke just stays where she is, eyes following his movements as her breathing finally starts to slow.

“What the hell am I doing? Well, Clarke, that’s a good question. What do you do when you find out the person who means more to you than life itself tried to leave you? Apparently the answer to that is to return to the scene of the crime,” Murphy flashes his signature bitter smile her way as he brings his hands up with a flourish to motion to the area around him.

He sees the recognition spark in Clarke’s eyes as she takes in her surroundings.

“Raven mentioned that you guys had a close call with Emori after the explosion…”

Murphy’s scoff cut her off before she could continue, “A _close call_? Is that what they’re calling it now?”

Clarke’s brows drew together in uncertainty as she slowly made her way to ease down next to Murphy, “You know what? I’m not really in the mood to play detective right now or go the usual rounds with you, so why don’t you just tell me what happened and why you’re scrubbing the floor of a wing we all agreed to block off.”

Murphy genuinely laughed at that as he brought the bottle to his lips again, “Clarke Griffin not in the mood to play hero? Color me surprised,” The smile, however, died on his lips when he turned to see his friend wearing her own signature stony mask as she stared at the opposing wall.

Misery did love company, so he just got on with it, “You see that rod over there?”

He watched as Clarke looked in the direction where he pointed and nodded her head for him to continue.

“That thing impaled Emori during the explosion. Jackson, Raven, and I worked to try and stop the bleeding, but he said he needed the lab back in Sanctum.”

If Clarke felt any guilt upon hearing that, there was no trace of it on her face as Murphy glanced her way. She wore the same hard expression she had the last time he’d looked. He didn’t actually blame her this time. He just knew Clarke had a tendency of blaming herself for things after making big decisions. He knew what that blame felt like.

“Raven was able to locate the stone and found it hidden beneath the floor right over there,” her eyes once again followed his hand to wear the sledgehammers still lay, “Raven and I beat away at it so that she could access the symbols.”

“Raven’s leg started to slow her down, so we insisted she trade places with Jackson. I needed someone at full strength and Emori needed to be kept awake, so Jackson and I continued hammering away while Raven talked to Emori.”

Clarke finally turned towards him, her expression willing him to continue. The usual softness in her eyes replaced with an unspoken way of telling him to get to the point.

Murphy drew a long breath before continuing, “Turns out that Emori decided she was dying or was already as good as dead. She told Raven to make the hard choice ‘ _like Clarke,’”_ he added with air quotes for emphasis, “and to leave her here and go to Bardo to help you all instead of going to Sanctum to save her.”

Murphy almost turned again to take in Clarke’s reaction, but he could see out of his peripheral vision how her head returned to its direction facing the wall opposite them. He also felt the familiar betrayal start to bubble within his chest that had him taking another long chug from the bottle.

For once, someone wasn’t silencing him, so he figured he may as well continue.

“Raven didn’t listen, obviously, because the four of us along with Miller ended up back in Sanctum’s lab. But I swear the second we got settled there I told Raven to save Madi. To stop Cadogan. We weren’t abandoning you guys, Clarke, I swear.”

Murphy didn’t know why at that moment, but he suddenly felt this overwhelming urge for Clarke to know that. For her to understand that. While his main focus had been on Emori, he’d never intended to leave the rest of his friends to fail. He needed Clarke to understand that the way he’d needed her to understand that he didn’t know what would happen to Abby. That he’d never meant for any of that to happen.

Murphy turned his upper body so that it would be facing Clarke only to find her head turned away from him. He wasn’t sure if it was out of anger or something else, but he decided there was no turning back now. He was giving her what she’d asked for and getting to the point.

“Emori was prepared to leave me. In fact, she wasn’t only prepared for it, but she actively _tried_ to leave me. She stopped fighting. If it hadn’t been for Raven, she never would’ve held on long enough to transcend.”

Murphy didn’t realize he’d let out a bitter laugh until the sound hit his own ears, “Did you know that she died anyway?” Still no response from Clarke aside from a barely audible gasp.

“We got her to the lab in Sanctum, started the transfusion, and blood sputtered out of her mouth as she took her last breath,” he couldn’t stop the tears that were running down his face even if he tried.

“She tried to leave me, and she almost succeeded. I stood there screaming at her lifeless body, shaking her and demanding that she get up. Nothing worked because she’d already done it – she’d left me. So, I did the only thing that I could, and I followed her.”

Clarke finally looked at him again. When his eyes met hers, he saw her own tears flowing steadily down blotchy cheeks.

“I had them put her mind drive into my head and entered her mind space. Emori begged me to have them take it out, knowing that it would kill me, but I told her that our last moments would be spent together, so we needed to make the most of it.”

Murphy took an almost violent breath in through his nose to try and keep the snot from dripping out as the tears just kept coming.

“She left me, so I followed her. I followed her long enough for our consciousnesses to transcend and followed her as our bodies were repaired and sent back down to Earth. A happy ending, right?” Murphy finished the last bit in a whisper, “At least it was up until I found out she had been ready to leave me.”

Murphy stood up after he finished, needing to feel his lungs expand at full capacity with the movement. He left the bottle on the floor and placed his hands loosely on his hips before turning to Clarke.

“What’s with you? It’s your turn to tell me what the hell you were doing around here and what you have tucked beneath your leg there,” Murphy finishes with a sharp nod towards her left side where the object still remained concealed.

Clarke just looks at him yet again with that blank expression, “Apparently the same as you. I was returning to the scene of the crime.”

-

Clarke couldn’t escape their room fast enough. Her mind was racing and she felt like she couldn’t breathe. Her heart pounded so hard against her ribcage that she was sure it would cause damage.

The way Madi looked at her – she’d _never_ looked at her like that. Her daughter had looked at her in anger, disappointment, uncertainty, and even fear when the situation warranted it, but she’d never seen the girl look at _anyone_ the way she’d looked at her tonight, not even an enemy. She looked at her like she was…like she was a _monster_.

As the _Commander of Death_ , Clarke had learned to accept that look from many people. She’d actually come to expect it from most grounders once they met her and learned of her title. She’d seen that look cross the faces of her friends before when she’d voice the hard truth they all knew was coming. Her own mother even looked at her that way after the bomb dropped on TonDC.

Clarke may have come to expect that look, but the one consolation she had was that Madi had never looked at her that way. Her daughter had never looked at her with a mixture of pure disgust and horror before. Like she couldn’t even recognize the woman in front of her. She hadn’t flinched away from Clarke’s touch since the first time Clarke had tried to stitch one of the girl’s wounds closed some years ago back in Shallow Valley.

She kept replaying the moment over and over in her head. Madi hadn’t even flinched away from her after Clarke put the shock collar around the child’s neck. Not even then had her daughter looked at her the way she looked at her tonight.

Before Clarke knew it, she was breaking out into a sprint – allowing her body to run on instinct and adrenaline to guide her to her destination. Her arms propelled her forward as she pushed her legs to their limit and her lungs struggled to catch up with the accelerated pace. It almost felt like running through Mount Weather again.

She rounded the spiral ramp so quickly that she skidded right into the fencepost as she reached the entrance. The pit was still stained with years’ worth of blood, the cage fencing still adorned with sharp weaponry while dust from the explosion coated parts of the floor. But none of that caught Clarke’s attention. None of that mattered.

Her focus was solely on the dagger that lay exactly where it fell after it had been stabbed deep into her child’s abdomen – the emptiness of the green mist still weightless in Clarke’s arms as she remembered the way she’d desperately grabbed for her girl.

Clarke’s breath hitched as she stared down the offensive item. She felt her whole body shake with every step she took towards it. When she was finally close enough to reach the dagger, she had to look away and swallow back the bile that rose as she saw the dried black blood cover the blade from its tip to its hilt.

_Madi’s blood._

Clarke couldn’t help the retch that tore through her body as she heard Madi’s grunt reverberate in the back of her mind while the visual of her daughter stabbing herself assaulted her memory again.

_I love you, Clarke._

Clarke fell to her knees in front of the dagger, squeezing her eyes shut as she could see the black blood still caked to her daughter’s top from the knife wound while her baby lie motionless in that goddamn torture chamber.

The mother found herself bent in half as uncontrollable sobs ripped from her throat. Her hands found the floor on either side of the dagger as she steadied herself just in time to retch again, the sound of her gagging echoing through the empty room. She sobbed until she choked on a mixture of saliva and lack of oxygen. She screamed until she felt like her vocal cords were destroyed.

Then, with a resolve that only a mother could have, Clarke grabbed the knife, stood, and turned all in one foul swoop as she sucked in a determined breath and marched towards the entrance of the cage – winding her way back up the ramp and out of the pit one last time.

-

Clarke had to work her way through the wing that the bomb damaged the most. The wing they had all agreed would be off limits now that they’d managed to move the Anomaly stone to a more suitable, less traumatic location.

Her arm kept the knife stilled by her side as her knuckles were bleached white from the tight grip she kept on the handle. She kept her eyes peeled for any wayward debris while simultaneously thinking of a way to destroy the knife. Or at least spot a location where it could be hidden and never found. She was a mother on a mission.

She was so caught up in her own thoughts that she almost didn’t catch the first grunt. The blonde stopped dead in her tracks and listened until she heard several more grunts sound from the same direction. A direction where nobody should’ve been.

_Maybe this dagger may prove useful after all._

Clarke moved swiftly but silently towards the noise, keeping the dagger concealed slightly behind her but at the ready should she need it. She hadn’t realized just how loud her breathing had been until she heard who turned out to be Murphy throw a comment at her over his shoulder.

_“Come back to the scene of the crime, huh? Ready to leave me again?”_

Clarke didn’t know who Murphy thought she was or who was going to leave him but judging by the way he was furiously wiping that cloth over the floor, maybe he needed a distraction just as badly as she did. She brought herself to his attention and listened to everything he had to say, drifting in and out of her own thoughts as he vented his frustrations at her instead of to her.

_“What’s with you? It’s your turn to tell me what the hell you were doing around here and what you have tucked beneath your leg there.”_

Shit. Murphy appeared to be done with whatever he was saying, most of which she did hear, she promises, and now he’s looking at her with a hint of a stupidly smug grin on his face while waiting expectantly for her reply. 

She catches his nod towards the knife and does her best to keep her voice even as she begins, _“Apparently the same as you. I was returning to the scene of the crime.”_

At Murphy’s confused look, she removes the dagger from behind her leg and holds it up within view.

“ _Jesus_ Clarke, who’d you manage to stab this time? Don’t tell me we have more surprise visitors. That alien creature said we were it! Unless you, Echo, and Octavia got into a spirited game of _Hide and Go Stab_.”

Murphy started to laugh at his own joke until Clarke interrupted with a sobering statement, examining the object in her hand as she said it.

“This is the knife my child used to get herself to Bardo and into the hands of Cadogan. I was forced to watch as my daughter told me she loved me and then proceeded to plunge this into her abdomen before disappearing into a cloud of green smoke that I couldn’t catch.”

Murphy’s jaw went slack, and he could feel his mouth go dry as he tried to think of something, _anything_ , to say. Luckily, he didn’t have to think for long since Clarke wasn’t done yet.

“Like you, I did what it took to follow her. I swallowed whatever the hell it was that Cadogan swallowed before he disappeared, and nothing happened. I prayed to whatever god was listening to be able to disappear, even if it was in the middle of a war zone. I didn’t care where I went or what was going on around me so long as it got me to where my child was.”

Clarke had stopped examining the dagger and opted to look just to the left of Murphy as she let her eyes fall out of focus before explaining the rest.

“It felt like hours went by before I started to disappear. I’m sure it probably wasn’t that long, but it felt longer than the 6 years I’d waited for you guys to return from space,” Murphy’s eyes darted anywhere away from Clarke after hearing that – finally settling on the ground just in front of her feet.

“When I finally started to feel the pull, Octavia and I were greeted by Disciples and thrown back into a cell just like before. Only this time Sheidheda was our neighbor and was all but howling out the grounder anthem,” Clarke had to take a steadying breath as she remembered the anger she felt as she screamed at the man to _shut up_.

“Levitt found his way into our cell and we ended up striking a deal with Sheidheda. He could go free if he provided a distraction for us. I didn’t care where he went or what he did. All I cared about was getting to Madi.”

Clarke closed her eyes as she willed herself to tell the next part.

“By the time we got to M-Cap, the room was empty. I was _so_ relieved to catch sight of Madi in that chair. I headed straight for her and dropped my gun as I went to greet her. I was so excited – so relieved. God, Murphy, I was so relieved that I didn’t even see the blood caked to her head at first.”

Murphy felt his Adam’s apple bob as his throat constricted. He turned his head as he tried to blink away the tears he felt coming on. They just trailed down his cheeks instead.

Murphy couldn’t manage to look directly at Clarke before she continued, but he could tell that a loose fist hovered near her mouth as her own tears dropped to her neck at an endless pace.

“I – I didn’t register how still she was. How quiet she was. I ignored the way her eyes were out of focus when I grabbed her face in my hands,” Clarke swallowed a little too thickly when she felt her throat tighten again. It felt worse than the shock collar ever did. Her breaths were coming in gasps again as she desperately tried to collect herself enough to go on.

Murphy heard her strangled breaths and thought about telling her that it was okay, that he’d heard enough, but he didn’t trust his own voice enough at this moment to get the words out.

Clarke’s voice cracked as she tried to power through her next words, “She…I – I told her I was there. I told her to say something. I _screamed_ at her to just _say something_.”

Clarke squeezed her eyes shut again as she heard herself screaming the two words that had plagued her nightmares ever since they’d left her lips.

Murphy blanched at the croak in Clarke’s voice as she half-sobbed and said, “I – I would’ve taken anything. I would’ve taken an ‘ _I hate you’_ or a ’ _you ruined my life’_ just to hear her voice again. Just to see her lips move and her eyes focus on mine, even if it were with all the intense hatred a child could muster.”

Murphy couldn’t take it anymore. Clarke was choking out the words in between sobs, and he felt his own dam break as he dropped down in front of Clarke and wrapped his arms around her. Well, as much as he could with her knees drawn into her chest and her back pressed against a boulder.

He grabbed the back of her head and pressed her face into his shoulder so hard he wasn’t sure she would be able to breathe, but it was the only thing he could think to do at the time to try and will the both of them to stop crying. Or at least to get back to the river of tears instead of the gut-wrenching sobs that emitted from the two of them.

Clarke didn’t move to wrap an arm around Murphy, but she didn’t push him away either. She didn’t even try to remove her face from its spot in his shoulder as she found herself no longer crying alone for the first time since she’d mourned for Madi that evening at the beach. She stayed in the position where he held her until she started to regain control over her breathing and heard him do the same.

When Murphy loosened his grip enough to allow Clarke to pull her head away, she knew she had to finish what she’d started. If he could do it, so could she. She owed him the rest of the explanation at this point. She wanted Murphy to know that she understood what he was feeling better than anyone else ever could.

“Levitt said she could hear me – that she knew I was there, but she couldn’t move or respond. He said that she never would be able to move or respond. Did you know we had a fight before Sheidheda showed up?”

Clarke’s words were coming out in a rush so she wouldn’t lose the courage to get them out.

“She was _so_ angry at me for – for…for killing Bellamy,” Murphy struggled to hear the last part that she whispered, but he still got the message loud and clear.

Clarke’s volume almost returned to normal for the next part, “For destroying that helmet and keeping her away from her new friends. I didn’t even know, Murphy. I swear I didn’t even realize that was an issue when I smashed that helmet. All I could think about was this mantra in my head that I wouldn’t lose anyone else. That I _couldn’t_ lose anyone else.”

Murphy remembered the anger he’d felt when Clarke stripped them of their ability to get back to Sanctum, but that didn’t even seem to matter at this point. He just nodded his head in understanding. For once, he felt like he actually could understand Clarke Griffin. He supposes there really is some power in just listening.

“She’d ran off to get some space from me when Octavia came and told me Sheidheda was here to take Madi. Just like that, the fight we’d had became a distant memory and all I could think about was getting to her. Protecting her.”

“You know, I once asked my mom how she could still care so much when we were at odds. She told me that I’d understand someday when I became a mother. Do you know what I said? I laughed and told her that day would never come,” Clarke finally met Murphy’s gaze with the ghost of a sad smile on her lips.

“Funny how things turn out, huh? Anyway, I didn’t care if Madi hated me or never wanted to see me again at that moment. The only thing I cared about was keeping her safe. When she walked in that room unharmed, it was like that second breath I took when we first got to the ground. That initial breath was terrifying, but the second breath was like breathing for the first time.”

Murphy settled back next to Clarke and remembered the dropship door opening for the first time. He knew exactly what she was talking about.

“Despite how mad she’d been at me, she still hugged me back. Granted, it was much too short for my liking, but she still hugged me back. That’s always been Madi. She’s never been mad enough at me to not hug back. Her last words before she stabbed herself were _‘I love you, Clarke,’_ ” Murphy watched as Clarke finally started wiping at some of her tears instead of just carelessly letting them fall.

“She never – _we_ never – we never went to bed or left one another’s presence without a hug or a kiss or an ‘ _I love you_.’ No matter how mad she was or how frustrated I may have been with everything and anything that day, we never lost sight of how much we loved one another or how lucky we were to have each other.”

“She always returned that love in spades. Until tonight. It’s all my fault, Murphy. I did something irrevocable and now my little girl will never be able to look at me the same way again.”

Clarke looked away from him and Murphy knew it was partially out of shame and partially because he knew she was trying not to break down again. He knew she needed a moment to collect herself, so he took up the reigns for a bit.

“Clarke, not to be an insensitive asshole or anything, but you are going to have to tell me exactly what happened at some point. I can assure you that there’s absolutely nothing, and I mean _nothing_ , you could ever do to make Madi not love you. I’ve seen the way that kid looks at you, and I swear it’s still like she thinks you hung the moon – even now. Whatever it is you think happened won’t matter for long.”

Clarke’s head snapped to look at him so quickly he almost backed away out of instinct.

“There is no _think_ , Murphy. I _know_ what happened. I _know_ what I saw tonight,” Her gaze was so intense that Murphy had to put all his effort into keeping his eyes from not widening in fear.

“Then _tell_ me what happened, Clarke. Tell me what it is that you _know_ ,” He emphasized the last word in a mocking tone, but he needed her to get to the point so that they could just fix each other already.

Her eyes softened into something impossibly sad as she looked down to her lap.

“You didn’t see her tonight, Murphy. She had a nightmare and when I went to help her out of it, she moved away from me. She actually _flinched_ when I moved to touch her. You should’ve seen the look on her face – it was like I was a monster in one of her bedtime stories. It was a look of pure _terror_. She – Murphy my daughter recognized that it was me and she backed away into the corner like – like I was going to _attack_ her or something.”

Clarke’s hands were flailing about wildly as she tried to recount the events to Murphy. It was like she still couldn’t wrap her mind around what had happened.

“Maybe she wasn’t fully awake. Maybe it was one of those night terrors or sleep walking things…”

To Murphy’s credit, he was trying before Clarke interrupted.

“No, Murphy, she knew it was me. When she recognized me, she became even more terrified,” Clarke finished the last part of her statement in a whisper, and her downcast eyes told Murphy that there was more to this that Clarke had yet to say.

“But _why_ , Clarke? I know you guys had a fight, but there’s no way in hell Madi would ever react to you that way over one fight. What the hell happened? What are you not saying?”

Murphy’s tone had a harsh edge to it, but he just needed her to spit it the fuck out already so he could make sense of things.

What Clarke whispered was something Murphy wasn’t sure he heard right, “It was supposed to be an act of mercy….”

“I’m sorry, what? You’re going to have to say that loud enough for something other than a bat to be able to hear.”

“ _IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE AN ACT OF MERCY!”_

Murphy definitely jumped back that time when he heard Clarke yell. He eyed her with caution as she sprung to her feet and paced the small path that had been cleared of debris.

“Levitt said that there was – there was no cure. There was no way to fix it. She’d never be able to tell me she loved me too or hug me back again. Her big blue eyes would never be able lock onto mine again in a way that held any meaning.”

“I couldn’t – I couldn’t just _leave_ her like that, Murphy! You know the kind of world we lived in, and you know what would’ve become of someone in her state. I couldn’t let that happen to her. I couldn’t let her be trapped like that,” Clarke’s pacing continued as her words came out clipped and frantic, like she was saying them more to herself than to him.

Murphy’s eyes were wide as saucers and his heart sped up as he started to realize what she was implying, “Clarke, you didn’t…”

“YOU WEREN’T _THERE_ , MURPHY! YOU DIDN’T _SEE_ HER!”

Murphy couldn’t control himself as he jumped to his feet and yelled right back.

“BUT SHE COULD HEAR _YOU_ , CLARKE! SHE _KNEW_ WHAT WAS HAPPENING TO HER!”

Clarke shrunk back at the sound of Murphy’s booming voice.

“I was there with her the whole time. I was talking her through everything. I told her to listen to my voice. I told her how much I loved her, not to be scared, and hummed her favorite lullaby. Octavia was going to make sure it was quick and…”

“Wait, _Octavia_? She was in on this too?” Murphy ran a hand through his hair as he started feeling sick with nervous energy. Clarke was occupying the only path for pacing, so fidgeting in place would have to do.

“She insisted that I not be the one to pull the trigger. She – she was going to bear it so that I didn’t have to,” Clarke’s breath hitched again as she finished that statement, the weight of it not lost on her while she desperately tried to keep a grip on what was left of her sanity.

“Jesus _Christ_ , Clarke, good thing Octavia wasn’t there when Madi woke up tonight or the kid would’ve had to face _two_ monsters in the same night. I’d be horrified to wake up and face The Commander of fucking _Death_ after that too! It would’ve been like being back in Bardo all over again.”

Murphy regretted his words the second they flew from his mouth, but he couldn’t seem to stop them right then and there. Because goddamnit this was a _lot_ to process. Clarke was standing here telling him she almost mercy killed her own kid with Octavia’s help. And Madi _knew_ what was about to happen to her but was totally unable to stop it.

Murphy felt a helpless fear take over his own body as he imagined Madi lying there, powerless, her mother’s face looming over her as her childhood hero was about to murder her. _What the fuck._

One look at Clarke told Murphy that he needed to get his shit together, because as unbelievable as this all was and as hard as it was to process, Clarke was clearly hanging by a thread right now. One more wrong word and he was sure it would send her off the deep end for good this time.

“Has Madi, you know, said anything to you or Octavia about this?” He’s proud of how even his voice sounds and thinks he’s done a great job at keeping the judgement out of his tone.

Clarke just stands, frozen, with her back to him. He can see the tight grip of the dagger in her left hand as her right arm is bent at the elbow towards her face. Most likely covering her mouth with her hand, he decides, when he sees her double over and retch as nothing comes out.

She’s sick about what she’s done. Absolutely sick. He knows she’s going to carry this with her for the rest of her days. He knows Madi will too. But he also knows that this won’t break them as individuals or as mother and daughter. He won’t let it.

“I was pretty pissed at you for taking off and leaving your kid behind. I mean, come on, Uncle Murphy? You had to have a better babysitter in mind than that.”

His words are a gamble and he knows it, but it’s all he can think to say right now. When he sees her stand upright again and her shoulders raise with the calming breaths he hears her taking in, he decides to continue.

“I mean everyone thought we were Primes and Indra was supposed to get Wonkru back, so we kinda just left Madi to Jackson. Not the best move, in hindsight, given that he was the only doctor left on the planet.”

“He was trying to bandage up the whole town and we ended up leaving a traumatized 12-year-old at home. We, well _we_ being Indra, Jackson, and Emori, decided that taking her to school and then keeping her at the farmhouse would be the best course of action.”

Clarke still hadn’t turned to face him, but he could tell she was listening.

“That was until Indra poached her from school, threw her in grounder garb, and called for a gathering with Wonkru.”

 _That_ got Clarke to spin on her heel to face him with a look of unbridled fear on her face and eyes sharp enough to cut right through him.

“Relax, okay. Jackson caught sight of Indra leaving the farmhouse with Madi in tow and found Emori and me before Indra could dangle Madi in front of Wonkru. I’ll have you know that I even told Indra she’d have to cut me down because that was the only way I was allowing your kid to be put in that position again. That was probably also the closest I’ve ever come to shitting my pants and having it go unnoticed…”

Clarke can feel the teensiest crack of a smile break out on her face, and that smile only widens when she sees Murphy smiling in satisfaction at having gotten her to smile. Clarke rolls her eyes as she glances to the side, a small smile still dancing on her lips.

“From that point forward, I became Uncle Murphy. It was like I’d become some goddamn paragon for kids or something. Suddenly they trusted me when they really had little to no reason to. Madi trusted me – even after what I’d done to you with the whole Josephine thing.”

Murphy waved his hands hopelessly in front of him when he mentioned Josephine, but Clarke didn’t feel a thing. That whole debacle felt like it was a lifetime ago. It seemed so insignificant given everything that had happened since then.

“Jackson told me that kids are like that. That they’re resilient. The smallest thing means the world to them, and once they love someone that love is for keeps. I told him there was no way that applied to all kids, and he told me I was right, but he pointed out that it did apply to Madi.”

Murphy refused to continue until Clarke met and held his gaze again. This was the important part.

“If you tell Jackson this, I swear I’ll deny it. I’m not putting up with another lecture on _‘doctor/patient confidentiality,’_ ” Murphy raised his voice several octaves in an effort to mock Jackson as he applied the air quotes to the phrase he’d clearly heard many times before.

Clarke couldn’t help but laugh. Even now, Murphy was still so, well, _Murphy_ , and she found herself appreciating it more than ever.

“But I may have, let’s just say, _overheard_ part of some of his sessions with Madi,” He smirked as Clarke rolled her eyes before he continued, “and damn if that kid wouldn’t do it all again – take the Flame, lead Wonkru, put up with Sheidheda, all of it – if it meant saving you.”

“You have to know that, Clarke. You have to know what you mean to her. How much she loves you. Yeah, her world may have expanded since your time in the valley, but so has yours. Does that mean you love her any less? Does that mean she’s not your first priority anymore?”

He knows he’s hitting below the belt just a bit with that one, but he also knows it’s working when Clarke’s expression hardens to that familiar look of determination and defiance she wears when she’s on a mission.

“Madi will _always_ come first for as long as I draw breath and until my heart makes its last beat. Nothing and no one mean more to me than my child, Murphy. Nothing. That’ll _never_ change, whether there’s 20 people left in this universe or 20 million.”

Clarke surprises herself with the certainty and steadiness in her voice after all the screaming and crying. But hearing Murphy question Madi’s place in her life brings out the fierceness she knows comes with maternal instinct.

Never question a _real_ mother’s love for their child. Clarke knows enough to know that Murphy didn’t have the pleasure of having a real mother, so she lets the comment slide beyond that.

“Did you ever think that maybe Madi feels the same way? She got up and followed you after you smashed that helmet. Sure, she was mad, but she followed you anyway. Did she ever tell you she hated you? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way. You and I both already know the answer to that one. Madi would never even think that, let alone say it, and you know I’m right.”

Clarke looked like she wanted to argue at one point, but he plowed on before she had the chance.

“I’m not going to coddle you here and say that what you did wasn’t traumatizing and horrific, but what I will tell you is that, believe it or not, I do understand why you were going to do what you almost did.”

“I think if you actually sit down and talk with Madi about it, she will too. Yeah, it’ll be a hard conversation. Maybe the hardest conversation you ever have. And it’s going to hurt like hell hearing what she has to say, but you owe it to her to listen anyway.”

“Shit, if you managed to listen to me tonight, you can manage to listen to your kid – even if we have to tranquilize you to get you through it,” Murphy finishes with a cocky grin in her direction and Clarke finds herself grinning right back despite everything.

“Hey Murphy?”

“I swear to God, Clarke, if you tell me to shut up or try and tell me that I’m wrong…”

She cuts him off at the pass, “I _am_ going to tell you to _shut up_ , Murphy, but it’s only so that I can answer your question,” at his silence and confused look, Clarke continues.

“I know exactly what it’s like when the person who means more to you than life itself tries to willingly leave you,” Clarke watches as Murphy’s jaw tightens and he rips his gaze away from hers in a subtle act of defiance.

“I watched my child _willingly_ stab herself and leave me to go to a man prepared to get what he wanted by any means necessary – even if those means cost her her life. But do you know _why_ she did that? Because it’s what I would’ve done. She grew up listening to my stories about all of you being heroes.”

Murphy opens his mouth like he’s about to protest when he hears that last word, but he shuts it just as quickly when Clarke hits him with her “mom look” that tells him she’s not finished.

“After she took the Flame, she told me that I had been the hero all along. I unknowingly raised my child to have the same self-sacrificial tendencies. Tendencies that have her put the safety and happiness of those around her before her own.”

“I know why Madi did what she did. It doesn’t mean I agree with it now or that I ever will, but I understand it. She wasn’t going to let anyone else she cared about get hurt when there was something she could do about it, no matter what I said or did to try and stop her. In a way, I’m sure it’s some twisted divine payback for everything I put my own mother through.”

Clarke had to take a breath and reign in her onslaught of emotions before she lost control of this conversation. She was the one who needed Murphy to understand this time.

“I know why Madi did what she did. I didn’t like it, but I understand it. I also know that I love her more than enough to move past it. Just like you know why Emori told Raven to leave her behind. You may not like it, but I know that you understand it, Murphy, so don’t even try and tell me that you don’t. The real question is do you love her enough to move past it?”

Now Clarke was the one hitting below the belt, but she didn’t care. Murphy could hit her with every shitty face he’s got or throw every insult in the book at her and she wouldn’t even blink at this point. Not after the night she’s had.

Murphy’s response is almost as indignant and outright offended as Clarke’s had been, “Of _course_ I love her enough. I would do anything for her.”

“Then talk to her. _Listen_ to her. Love her enough to get through this. You have to talk to her, and I have to talk to my daughter. The longer we stand here avoiding that fact won’t make it any less inevitable.”

Clarke moves to grab Murphy’s hand while moving the bottle just out of his reach and pulling him down the narrow path to get out of this hell hole. She tosses the dagger she’s been holding this entire time into a crack in the floor where no one would ever see it, let alone be able to access it by any means. He would be surprised by the sudden action and determination at which she moves, but it’s Clarke Griffin, and she’s on one of her missions.

That’s why he knows resistance is futile and allows himself to be pulled along without a fight. She maintains the grip on his hand out into the hallway, tightens it briefly as they pass the entrance to the pit, and doesn’t let go until they’ve reached the wing where their rooms reside.

She drops his hand unceremoniously as she flashes him one last smirk before managing to walk nervously, yet still with a note of confidence, to her own closed door.

The last thing he sees before turning to face his room is Clarke jerking her head towards his door while her hand rests on the handle of her own.

He hears a “ _Beat it, Murphy_ ,” from over his shoulder a split second before he opens his door. The smile on his face is more genuine than he thought it could be after the day he’s had.

For once he doesn’t mind hearing those words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, over 8500 words in one night! Other chapters definitely won't be this long, but I've always had a soft spot for this friendship even back before season 7 when I still hated Murphy. Next we'll get to see what Raven and Madi have been up to.
> 
> And hey, this one ended on a cheerier note than the last 2 chapters! That's progress.


	4. Bent, Not Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raven fixes things. It's what she does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two lengthy updates within two days. Not sure how I feel about this one, but I hope you all like it. I love Madi and Raven's dynamic and always wished we could've seen more of them together.

_Help Madi._

That was something Raven could do when the little girl had needed a way to patch a leak in the bunker’s irrigation system she’d rigged up for Picasso. Helping Madi was one of the mechanic’s favorite things to do when the child wanted to develop different ways to flavor and store meat after her hunts with Echo – always happy to play taste-tester or construct whatever the younger girl desired.

Raven was always willing to help Madi. She’d deemed herself the _cool_ aunt, and therefore she had a reputation to uphold. Science experiments in the woods, secret first sips of moonshine, setting off emergency flares on a clear night because her batch of fireworks wasn’t _quite_ ready yet and the child asked if it would be the same as wishing on a shooting star. The older brunette hadn’t known the answer to that, but she assured her niece that they would find out.

What they managed to _actually_ find out was just how quickly the rest of the group would respond in the event of a real emergency. She was sure Clarke’s artery was going to burst right out of her neck when the blonde was the first to respond. The mechanic just shot her a sheepish grin as everyone else arrived haphazardly.

 _“Think you could wish for the fam to show up in a better mood next time, Mads?”_ She’d then thrown her arm around Madi’s shoulders and tucked the giggling girl into her side, ignoring the onslaught of reprimands and shouts about irresponsibility being thrown her way.

Helping Madi had never been a problem. The problem was that the older woman was currently barefoot and clutching a tire iron with both hands – Madi’s panicked breaths registering louder and louder.

Realizing that her current state probably wasn’t going to do much to comfort the kid, Raven turned to gently set her tool on Clarke’s mattress, forcefully muttering _“fuck”_ under her breath as she looked to the wall in front of her. Her back was still turned to the child as she inhaled a deep breath and let her head roll back towards the ceiling.

That little act was all it took to ignite the genius within Raven Reyes.

Her eyes flickered to the wall once more before she turned on her heel, her eyes alight with excitement at her own brilliance, and strode over towards Madi with a single soft command.

“Put your shoes on, kid. We’re going on a little adventure,” she shot the girl her signature smirk and lingered in the doorway long enough to see the child grab for her boots before taking off back to her room to pull on her own.

Returning to Madi’s doorway just in time to watch the kid stand from her bed, she reached for the girl’s hand – pausing just for a moment to examine the child’s face – and pulled her into the hallway when she was satisfied that the girl only looked curious, not scared.

The last thing Raven needed was to scare the kid even more.

Speaking of not scaring the kid more, where did Clarke go? _Shit._ She wishes she’d paid more attention to the direction her friend had taken, but it was a little too late to worry about that.

She held tight to Madi’s hand, made sure to tread lightly, and lead her niece straight out of the bunker and into the awaiting darkness of the woods.

-

Madi didn’t know where they were going, but she knew that she needed to get the hell out of that room. She knew that she trusted the woman whose hand gripped hers with everything that was in her. Raven was one of the few people Madi felt that way about – and that thought alone filled her with relief and guilt at the same time.

_She used to trust Clarke this way._

The girl squeezed her eyes shut for a few moments, knowing that her aunt wasn’t letting go of her hand anytime soon, and just allowed herself to be lead away from anywhere that wasn’t that bunker.

She hadn’t even realized how dark it was or how long they’d been walking when she bumped into the back of the older woman who had stopped to aim her flashlight at something in front of her. Something that looked like part of a wall.

Suddenly she felt Raven drop her hand as the woman instructed her to move back a little. All Madi could do was watch as the older brunette pulled at some long handle to heave open a _huge_ door.

Huh. She recognized that door.

Madi didn’t have time to remember where she knew that door from because Raven had grabbed her hand again and was pulling her inside of whatever this thing was.

“I need you to hold the light for me for a sec, okay?” Madi nodded her agreement before taking the offered flashlight from Raven’s hand.

The girl was tempted to flash the light around her to see just where she was, but she didn’t want to leave her aunt in the dark while she was doing whatever it was that Raven tends to do.

She didn’t have to worry about the flashlight for long, though, when she felt her eyes burn as they struggled to adjust to the light that suddenly filled the space. She blinked rapidly to try and help the process along before she looked over to see Raven holding two cords together with a triumphant smile on her face.

“Welcome to what’s going to be your playroom, kid.”

-

Raven watched as Madi’s forehead developed that little wrinkle it gets when she’s concentrating. Adorable.

“I mean you’re probably gonna have to share it with Rex and Luca, but this space is gonna be just for you guys once it’s finished,” Raven held one hand on her hip while the other gestured around the space where she was standing.

She watched as Madi’s head turned and her eyes moved about the room, taking it all in.

“This – this is one of those container things from Sanctum,” Madi turned back towards her, her brows knit together in obvious confusion.

“I don’t like the term ‘ _container_.’ I’m sticking with playroom. You guys are kids, kids like to play, and this will be a room where you can do that. Or where you can just chill and get away from us adults. Whatever floats your boat.”

Raven flopped down into a sack she’d also poached from Sanctum and gestured for Madi to do the same in a similar one across from her.

The mechanic’s hands flew about, her expression exasperated as she explained. “You don’t even wanna know many trips I had to make to get this here and reassembled. I had to break down the metal walls and bring everything over in pieces just to reconstruct it again once I got it all here.”

Madi, unlike her aunt, had eased her way into the soft sack that sat across from the older brunette. It was more comfortable than anything she’d ever sat on before – mattresses included.

“When did you do all of this? _Why_ did you do all of this?” She looked to her aunt with an expression that was almost pleading. It wasn’t that she was ungrateful or anything, but there seemed like so many other things the woman could be doing with her time and the trips.

“Because I wanted you, all of you, to have somewhere to go where you could feel comfortable and safe and get away from everything if you needed to,” Raven explained.

The adults in their strange little family had decided that certain members would use the Anomaly stone to travel back and forth from Earth to Bardo or Sanctum to gradually collect necessary supplies and anything else of value that would help rebuild their home on Earth.

Raven, Jordan, Jackson, Levitt, and Miller had been the ones deemed best for the trips. This was one day’s worth of trips Raven dared to make on her own, and she felt it had been well worth the effort.

“I spent most of my life behind metal walls, Madi. First the Ark, then the dropship, and then back to the Ring. The hundred all spent their lives behind metal walls, and do you know where they made camp when they landed?”

Madi nodded, “The dropship.”

Raven smiled at the girl before continuing, “You got it. We went outside, built walls, explored the ground – but the dropship was like a homing beacon for us. It represented a safe space. Kind of like an ironic source of comfort.”

Raven knew the dropship was basically supposed to be a giant coffin for the 100 delinquents, but the kids couldn’t help but be comforted by the safety and familiarity that the walls provided.

“I know that I can’t bring back the home you shared with Clarke or the little trailer you had, but I thought I could give you a new place where you could feel safe. A place that wasn’t under some floor or underground,” Raven lowered her eyes and her tone for the last part, knowing enough about the floor beneath the trailer where Madi hid for half of her life.

She opted to look around at her handiwork while she gave the girl a moment to take everything in. The place wasn’t much to look at yet, but in the 2 weeks since their return to Earth Raven had managed to reassemble the container, run electricity to it from the bunker, and add a few of the more comfortable, casual furnishings she could manage to carry on her own. Hence the four bean bag chairs and small table that were scattered about.

The mechanic was originally going to make this her workshop and construct something for the kids later, but then Echo had told her Madi opted to go hunting more and more because the boys spent a lot of time at the rec room in the bunker – a place she knew Madi wouldn’t dare go near.

Raven Reyes tried to have a tough-as-nails persona but hearing that had turned her to mush. Matters pertaining to Madi tended to have that effect on most of the adults who knew the girl.

She spent the entirety of the next day taking apart and transporting pieces of an old shipping container from Sanctum to Earth. The workshop would simply have to wait.

Raven had thought she’d made a good call until she heard the horrifying sound of a child softly sobbing across from her.

-

_“I know I can’t bring back the home you shared with Clarke….”_

Madi sucked in a breath at those words and tucked her chin into her neck as far as she could, trying to crawl within herself as much as physically possible. She started to feel like it was getting harder to breathe again and her vision was clouding with what she knew were tears.

At first, she had been almost deliriously happy when Raven explained how she’d wanted this to be a source of comfort for the girl. She still couldn’t believe how lucky she felt to have so many people around her now who genuinely cared about her instead of just tolerating her like she’d always secretly feared they might.

Here one of her aunts was explaining this amazing thing she’d done for the kid, and all Madi could feel was pain in her chest once Clarke was mentioned. She wanted to jump from her seat and pounce onto Raven with joy, but she felt like she could hardly breathe let alone move.

_“Kind of like an ironic source of comfort.”_

Madi had heard every word, but the tears that had clouded her vision and the pain in her chest had turned into sobs. Sobs that had Raven visibly struggling out of the bean bag chair to make her way over to the girl.

Madi was waiting for the woman to make some sort of remark but was surprised to feel a weight drop down next to her instead. A weight that caused her own body to pop upwards on impact. She didn’t even get a chance to look over before an arm flew around her and she found the side of her face pressed against Raven’s chest.

She knew she must really be ugly crying for Raven to be holding her like this. She could even feel one of her aunt’s hands running its way through her hair as she rocked the two of them ever so slightly.

_Just the way Clarke does it._

She feels a wail rip from her own throat at that thought because Clarke was the only one to ever hold her like this. Not even her _nomon_ had ever held her the way Clarke had. She kept waiting to hear Clarke’s soft voice, “ _You’re okay. You’re safe. I’m here. I’m right here. You’re okay,”_ but Clarke was the very reason she needed to be held right now.

“I’m not going to tell you that you’re okay, because clearly you’re not, but I am going to tell you that you will be okay with time. I can promise you that,” Raven’s voice broke through her cries.

Madi couldn’t help the croak in her words, “How? How can you promise?”

“Because you have the most badass aunt ever and I’m going to make damn sure that you’re okay.”

Madi feels her head being raised only for Raven to hold her by her cheeks to force eye contact. She notices for the first time that Raven’s cheeks are stained with tears too. She hadn’t meant to make the older woman cry – especially not after everything she was trying to do to make Madi more comfortable in their home.

-

Raven’s heart, soul, spirit, just _everything_ felt like it cracked when she brought Madi’s eyes to her own. It was like watching a downpour while the skies remained blue. She never imagined she’d feel this kind of connection with a child, but Madi wasn’t just any other kid.

 _God_ she’d do anything, _anything_ , to make this downpour stop. Her own heart couldn’t handle the little girl’s sobs. Raven knew she had to do what she did best: fix shit.

Madi hiccupped and sniffled in her arms and she recognized that the child was trying to calm herself down. That was good. The calmer she was, the easier it would be for the kid to explain what had happened.

“Breathe for me, Mads. Just breathe. In and out,” Raven heard the girl trying to breathe through her runny nose and praised her, “Good. Think about a couple of days ago when Luca walked in on Murphy and Emori. Normally that’s my job, but it seems as though I’ve finally passed the baton.”

Raven heard Madi’s watery giggle and knew her plan had worked. Luca had been beet red when they passed him in the hallway last week. Raven, Madi, and Echo turned just in time to see a flustered Murphy and Emori covered by a single bedsheet calling after the boy.

He opted to move into an adjacent room with Rex that same night. The three girls had laughed about it for the rest of the evening.

Hearing Madi’s breathing slow enough that she’d be able to get out coherent sentences, Raven knew it was time.

“I’m gonna need you to tell me what happened back there, kiddo,” she didn’t need to be specific. She knew that Madi understood what she was talking about.

Madi’s first breath was shaky, but she managed to say, “I couldn’t stop it. I could see and I could hear, and I knew what was happening, but I couldn’t stop her. Couldn’t stop _them._ I wanted to scream that I was in there. That I was still me. But nothing came out. I couldn’t get anything to come out. I couldn’t even look at her. I wouldn’t have been able to stop it.”

Madi’s breathing was getting dangerously fast again, so Raven knew she needed to act quickly.

“Madi, hey, breathe for me. Take a breath for a second,” Raven instructed.

Once Madi’s breathing evened out again, Raven asked, “Couldn’t stop what, Mads? What couldn’t you stop?”

What Madi said next would be something that would haunt Raven for the rest of her days.

“I couldn’t stop them from killing me.”

-

_“I couldn’t stop them from killing me.”_

Madi could feel Raven go stiff around her after she’d said that. She’d wanted to look up at the woman and tell her it was okay, but she couldn’t because it wasn’t.

“Cadogan – he put me in this chair and strapped me down. It was something that was supposed to capture my memories. They – they said it wouldn’t hurt if I didn’t fight it,” Madi heard herself explain.

“They?”

She heard how hoarse her aunt’s voice was with just that one word, but she chose to ignore it.

“Cadogan and Levitt. Levitt was running the machine and Cadogan was telling him what to do. I – I started to fight it once I saw one of Becca’s memories. It was like I could feel how afraid she was, and I knew I couldn’t let them have the code. After that, I told Cadogan to go float himself and started to fight.”

Madi was breathless now from trying to rush out her explanation.

Raven snorted, “Of course you did.”

The smile that Madi felt tug at her lips disappeared just as quickly as it came.

Raven had tried to make her voice as gentle as possible, “What happened next, kiddo?”

Madi took in yet another breath before continuing, “Cadogan sent Levitt away because he wouldn’t push the machine any further. Levitt said it would hurt me. Cadogan brought in some woman and she pushed the machine as far as he asked.”

Madi closed her eyes and felt the tears escape before she carried on in a whisper.

“I screamed so loud, Raven, I screamed and fought until suddenly I couldn’t scream anymore. I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t fight, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even feel myself breathing.”

The girl stopped as she felt the vice grip around her and heard much louder sobs resounding throughout the room. Sobs that, for once, didn’t belong to her.

-

They told Raven it was bad. Said it had been worse than death. She couldn’t imagine something worse than death in that moment, but she could now. She hadn’t had time to really press the issue when everything originally went down.

She knew she was sobbing. She knew she was holding so tightly to Madi that it probably hurt. She just couldn’t seem to make herself stop doing either thing. She knew she should be comforting Madi. Telling her it was okay now. Asking questions. Do something other than just cling to the girl and cry.

But right now, she just fucking couldn’t.

Madi’s voice was hoarse when she spoke again.

“I could hear a bunch of people moving around me, but I couldn’t move my eyes to look at them. I heard Cadogan calling for people. I knew then that he got it. That he got the code. I didn’t even realize it had happened. I didn’t even know how to stop it at that point.”

Raven tried to take her own advice from earlier by snorting hard through her nose in a pathetic attempt at deep breathing.

She could feel Madi’s eyes on her for a moment, but they were gone just as quickly.

Madi whispered, “I heard them storm out of the room and I knew I’d failed you guys. I knew I ruined everything. I tried so hard to move. To scream. To do _anything_ to try and stop him. Nothing worked. My mind was thinking and taking everything in, but I couldn’t get anything to work.”

That was what got Raven to snap out of it and get her own shit together. She relaxed her hold on Madi enough to gingerly grab Madi’s face again. She needed to make sure the girl heard this loud and clear.

“You failed no one, do you hear me? _No one_ ,” Raven finished forcefully, “ _We_ were the ones who failed _you_ , do you understand me?”

Her voice sounded harsh even to her own ears, but there was no way in hell she was going to let a 12-year-old kid blame herself for not being able to withstand a fucking _torture_ device.

Madi protested, “But…”

Raven was having none of that. “But nothing, Madi. You’re a kid, and you never should’ve been put in that position to begin with. Period. It was all of our jobs as adults to figure something out, and we figured it out too late. What happened to you happened because we took too long to get our shit together, okay?”  
  


Raven’s voice was softer this time, “We were the ones who made the mistakes that lead to your being there, Madi. It was us. I know you were the one who snuck off and turned yourself over to Cadogan, but that was only because you didn’t want to watch anymore of us die over another stupid fucking war.”

Raven’s sobs had ceased, but her tears continued in earnest.

Now it was the older woman’s voice that was but a whisper, “I’m _so_ sorry, Madi. I’m _so_ incredibly sorry. I need you to know that.”

Raven could feel Madi’s head nod against her chest. She would’ve sighed in relief if she still hadn’t felt so fucking awful.

She thought that was it. She thought the story was over.

She wished that _had_ been the end of it. What came next was somehow even worse.

-

Madi’s voice was a harsh whisper, “Levitt – he came back. He came back with Clarke and Octavia. They started to undo the straps from around me and Clarke was telling me it was okay, that she was there. Then I heard her say that something was wrong. She was begging me to say something.”

Madi’s breath hitched as she hiccupped again, “My field of vision changed even though I hadn’t felt myself being moved. I knew Clarke was holding me because I could see her hair out of the corner of my eye. I could hear her whispering by my ear. I could hear footsteps walking away from me that weren’t Clarke’s.”

“The footsteps came back, and I heard Octavia tell Clarke that I could hear her – that I knew Clarke was there. Clarke was telling me that she loved me and then she asked Levitt if I could be cured…”

Madi heard her voice break at the same moment she felt like she’d swallowed a rock. She felt sick and her head was hurting from all the crying, but she knew she was going to cry again. She couldn’t help it.

Raven must have noticed the break in Madi’s voice because the girl could feel the woman’s hand running down her head and through her long hair again. She felt the weight of Raven’s head land on top of her own. The sound of a kiss being dropped to the top of her head greeted her ears.

She felt a familiar warm wetness running down her scalp. Now that she could feel things again, that is. She had to remind herself every morning that this wasn’t all a dream – that she was back on Earth and could control her own body. She also had to remind herself that what had happened wasn’t just some bizarre nightmare.

The nightmare she’d had tonight wasn’t just a nightmare. _It was a memory._

-

Raven was hoping beyond hope and praying to everything there was to pray to that this story got better. That there was some saving grace to hearing what this child had been put through.

She needed that to be the case right now, but what she needed didn’t matter.

What mattered was that her niece was falling apart right before her eyes, and she didn’t know how to fix it. She knew she had to, but at this moment she didn’t have the slightest idea how. She fucking _hated_ this feeling. Hated it more than anything else she’d experienced.

She was brought out of her own head again when she heard Madi sniffle before continuing.

“He said I couldn’t be. That I wouldn’t get better. I could hear Clarke’s cries and knew she was grabbing me, but I still couldn’t feel it. I could see her move away out of the corner of my eye, and then Octavia told Clarke no. She told Clarke that she would do it. All I could see was the ceiling until Clarke moved my head so that I could see her.”

“Clarke was hovering above me and I could see Octavia out of the bottom of my eyes, if that makes any sense. At least I could see part of her. Clarke was telling me how much she loved me and for me not to be scared. She started humming a song to me that she would hum whenever I was upset. But I still heard it…”

Raven was almost afraid to ask. Scratch that. She was _terrified_ to ask.

Her own voice sounded foreign to her as she asked anyway. “Heard what?”

Madi’s whisper was so low that Raven wasn’t sure she’d be able to catch it, but her words ended up being unmistakable.

“…the gun click…”

Raven gasped liked she was gasping for air in space without a helmet. She detangled herself from Madi and pushed herself to her feet in a move so quick and violent she wasn’t sure how she’d managed it with her leg brace.

She couldn’t sit there anymore. Not if she wanted to find a way to breathe again. The room felt like it was spinning and _shit_ this space felt too fucking small even for the kids right now.

_The gun click._

_The gun click._

_Madi heard a gun click._

Maybe another Disciple entered? No, that couldn’t be it. Madi would’ve mentioned hearing the door open.

 _Clarke!_ Yes, that made sense when she thought about it. She’d watched Clarke put that gun to her own head when she thought there was no hope of getting Madi back before.

Clarke must’ve put the gun to her own head until Octavia offered to do it for her.

But then why was Clarke leaning over Madi? Why would Clarke want Madi to be looking at her for that?

No.

_No._

Raven knew she was pacing as wildly as she could with only one good leg, but she didn’t care. She was trying to make sense of this. She hadn’t even looked at Madi since she’d shot up out of the beanbag.

_Fuck. Madi._

Her head sprung up to look at the girl and what she saw made her want to vomit.

Madi’s knees were held to her chest, arms wrapped tightly around her bent legs. Her head was propped on her knees as tears fell from her unblinking eyes.

Raven couldn’t get over how tightly the girl held her knees to her chest – like she was protecting it.

_Protecting it._

_No._

_Oh God, no. Please no._

That gun wasn’t pointed at Clarke. It had been pointed at Madi.

-

At first Madi had thought she’d said something wrong when she felt Raven rip her arms away and watched the woman jump to her feet. She hadn’t even finished her story yet. What did she do wrong?

The young girl watched as her aunt started pacing the length of the container – sorry, _room_ – as her eyes remained trained to the floor in front of her with each step. She was muttering to herself and shaking her finger around like she was in the midst of some invisible argument.

Madi wanted to say something, but she didn’t want to make it worse. She didn’t even know what to say. She didn’t know what to do at all anymore. Right now, it felt like nothing made sense.

Logically, she knew she was here. She knew she was fine. She knew that she should be happy, and for the most part, she was. During the daytime she was as happy as ever. She was as happy as she’d been since she was in Shallow Valley.

Only Shallow Valley didn’t seem like such a happy memory to her anymore. Those had been some of the best years of her life so far, but it currently didn’t feel that way.

Now she just wished Raven would say something. That Raven would fix everything. She didn’t know how to fix it. The person who always fixed everything before was the one who broke everything this time, and Madi didn’t know how to cope with that. So, she curled herself into a ball as best she could – just like every other time she had that nightmare. That _memory_.

Madi thought she’d soon get at least part of her wish when she noticed Raven finally look her way again.

Raven’s voice was louder than the girl expected.

“That gun was meant for you, wasn’t it?” Raven hadn’t meant for her voice to sound accusatory, but control wasn’t exactly her thing right now.

Madi only managed a nod.

Raven’s wheels were really turning, “And you relived that in a nightmare, which is why you reacted the way you did towards Clarke when you woke up, isn’t it?”

This may be turning into more of an interrogation on Raven’s end, but everything was clicking into place and she was running on all cylinders.

Again, another nod from the child.

“When you said Clarke disappeared and then came back, she was getting the gun. When Octavia told Clarke no, it was because she was taking the gun from Clarke. That’s when Octavia came into your view, Clarke was in front of you humming or whatever, and you heard that gun click…”  
  


Raven knew she shouldn’t be saying all of this to the kid right now, but she felt like she had to say it out loud to actually wrap her brain around it because _Holy fucking shit_.

She had to remind herself to breathe again. In and out. In and out.

She looked to Madi who looked as helpless and small as ever, and she couldn’t help the guilt she felt at having just made the kid essentially relive it all over again.

But the kid was reliving it in her sleep anyway, which is why they were here in the middle of the night to begin with.

Raven’s not sure her handbook has a solution for what to do when your mother and your childhood hero try and pull a mercy kill on you.

What the _fuck_ , Clarke and Octavia.

Okay. She could do this. She had to do this for Madi.

“I’m not even going to begin to pretend to know what to say to that, Madi, but I am going to share a little of my own experience with you. Give you a little insight about Clarke, too.”

Raven’s voice is steady as she continues, “If anyone knows what it’s like to be, well, _different_ in this world, it’s me,” she gestures to her left leg for unnecessary clarification.

“I’m not sure how much you know about what happened to me, but let’s just say Murphy wasn’t always the hero you grew up hearing stories about or the _‘Hero Murphy’_ we know and love today.”

Raven watched as Madi finally lifted her chin from her knees, that adorable little wrinkle of curiosity appearing on her forehead again.

“Hard to believe, right? Well, it’s true. Murphy was a dick. But don’t use that word or tell anyone I said that. Unless it’s Murphy. By all means, you can tell Murphy I said that,” she finishes with a serious note but can hear the desired giggle that comes from Madi.

“Murphy was on a revenge spree for something that hadn’t even involved me and launched an attack campaign on some of the people within our camp. He killed two of the delinquents, tried to hang Bellamy, and shot me in the process,” Raven rambled it off like she would a parts list to an apprentice.

“Not sure I should be telling you all of this, but I have to tell you to get my point across. It’s not to make you scared of Murphy or anything like that, okay? Murphy would never hurt you or any of us. He’s _Hero Murphy_ now.”

Raven’s stopped pacing now so that she can hold Madi’s gaze. The kid’s eyes are wide, but she looks otherwise unscathed so far. Good.

Raven carries on determinedly, “The bullet was lodged near my spine right before the big grounder attack on the dropship. Cliff notes version in case you don’t know: 300 grounders were being sent to kill us that night. The night I just so happened to have a bullet in me throughout the entire attack.”

Madi doesn’t dare say a word. Raven almost finds her silence unnerving, but she knows Madi is a sucker for a good story. She also knows the kid is pretty traumatized right now. The mechanic opts to stop trying to analyze the kid’s reaction and just get it all out there.

“Anyway, Clarke couldn’t perform surgery or anything to get the bullet out and I couldn’t move. I lost consciousness before the final attack even happened. When I came to, the dropship door was open, and I was all alone with nothing but dead bodies around me.”

“Eventually I heard a noise, so I grabbed a gun that was within my reach. Lo and behold, the one and only John Murphy walks into the ship. Talk about irony, right?” Raven chuckles at herself and the memory.

“I pointed the gun at him, and he gave me some sob story about his childhood. Daddy died, mommy didn’t love him, got himself locked up – all things that sucked but not enough to distract me from the fact that the bullet he put in me was getting closer to my spine.”

“He gave me the option to pull the trigger, so I did. Nothing. Gun was empty. Had it not been, I may have ended up killing the man who has become one of my very best friends, Mads.”

Raven could see Madi’s own wheels turning now as she wore her signature mask of concentration. Again, totally adorable.

“I don’t know what stopped Octavia from pulling the trigger, and I don’t need to know. All I need to know is that she never got the chance to, and we will all forever be grateful for that. Just like I will forever be grateful that the gun I pointed at Murphy wasn’t loaded.”

Madi finally speaks up, “How long did it take?”

Raven quirks an eyebrow in question, “How long did what take, Mads?”

“How long did it take for you to forgive him?” Madi asks with all the hope and innocence in the world behind her tone.

Raven’s not even sure she can remember. Sometimes Earth 1.0 just feels like a blur.

She settles for saying, “Not long, given our circumstances. But we didn’t actually become family until our time up on the Ring.”

If Madi’s disappointed with that answer, she doesn’t let it show.

Raven takes a breath to continue, “I’m not saying what happened to you is the same thing as what happened to me, but I do know what it’s like to feel helpless like that. Abby told me I’d never be able to walk again if she didn’t remove the bullet. She said I may not survive the surgery if she did try and remove the bullet.”

Raven’s not sure why, but she feels a little guilty telling Madi this next part.

“I decided I’d rather be dead than paralyzed from the waist down. I know – I know that might sound harsh, but I also knew there was no way I would’ve been able to make it as a paraplegic in the world we lived in, Madi. There were times I barely made it just with nerve damage and my leg brace.”

Raven’s next words came out as more of a plea than anything, “Where I came from – where _we_ came from – me, Clarke, Octavia, Murphy, Miller, and Jackson, people with special conditions didn’t have much of a chance, Mads. It’s sad, but it’s the truth. They couldn’t afford to care for people with conditions like that on the Ark, and things only got worse once we got to Earth.”

“People died from what should’ve been small things – like colds or mild cases of Asthma. We grew up in a rough environment where not even the healthiest of people were guaranteed survival, let alone those with medical issues.”

Raven takes it as a victory that she’s managed to maintain Madi’s gaze this whole time. The girl has yet to look away. She knows she’s getting through to her in some way.

“I know you’re one of the last people who needs to be told this, but Cadogan and his Disciples were _not_ good people, Madi. They weren’t the kind of people who showed mercy. I know what Clarke and Octavia did was awful and traumatizing as fuck, but I also know that they were trying to protect you in the only way they thought they could at that time.”

It’s the uncertainty in Madi’s voice when she finally speaks again that hurts Raven the most.

“But how do I unknow what I know? How do I stop seeing it when I close my eyes? How do I look at them again and not panic, even if that panic only lasts for a second? How do I – how do I learn to trust my mom again?”

Boy the kid’s not making this easy. Not that something like this ever could actually be easy.

Raven’s voice softens again as she starts a more personal story, “You probably haven’t heard this story yet, but my biological mom also wasn’t a nice person. She didn’t want me around and only used me to get things that she wanted – like drugs and alcohol.”

Raven wills her voice to remain steady enough to continue, “I didn’t grow up with a loving mother, and when I met Abby, I was honestly jealous of the way she loved Clarke. The way Abby talked about her daughter – the way she was willing to do anything and everything to get to Earth and find her – I thought there was nothing better in the world than having a mother love you like that.”

Raven tears her eyes away from Madi’s because she can feel her own eyes welling up again.

“Apparently moms are supposed to be like that. Abby was moving heaven and Earth to protect Clarke and Clarke was rejecting that protection at every turn. Sound familiar?” Raven finishes with a quirked eyebrow and a teary smirk in Madi’s direction.

She knows it’s not the time for joking, but they could both stand to have the mood lightened just a bit.

Madi gives her aunt a small smile in return, and Raven’s not sure if it’s out of pity or what, but she’ll take a smile from Madi any day.

“Anyway, I kind of developed my own bond with Abby. Sometimes I felt like she was my mom too with the way she seemed to care about me. She cared about me even when she had no reason to, and that was something I wasn’t used to. The woman who was actually supposed to care about me couldn’t be bothered, but here was this woman who seemed to genuinely care when she had every reason not to bother.”

Raven’s tears were flowing again as she said, “I loved her like a mom, Mads. Not gonna lie to you. And she hurt me in a way that a mom never should, and it was like being betrayed by my biological mother all over again.”

Raven’s voice lowered even more for the last part, “I know you saw Abby overdose. Before that, she had me build a device to cure McCreary’s men. I thought she needed me to build it because they threatened to kill her. Turns out she needed me to build it so they’d give her more pills.”

“When I found out why she needed it, I tried to take the device from her. I still had my shock collar on at the time. When I grabbed the device, she pulled the trigger and electrocuted me over a single bottle of pills.”

Raven hadn’t realized just how bad her tears had gotten until she felt small arms snake around her waist and a head nestle itself just beneath her chin. Raven dropped her face to the top of Madi’s head and just let herself breathe in the child’s scent.

She smelled like the berry soap that Niylah had made, only there was something so distinctly _Madi_ about the scent. Something that was unique to the kid in her arms.

If the damp spot forming on the front of her shirt was anything to go by, Madi was shedding more of her own tears, too.

Raven found herself dropping yet another kiss to the girl’s head before pulling back enough for their eyes to meet.

Raven uses the softest voice she can muster, “I need you to do something for me. I also need you to remember something for me. Think you can manage that?”

She quirks a challenging eyebrow at her niece who only nods eagerly in return.

“I know that Clarke has hurt you, but I need you to think about _why_ she’s hurt you. What was she trying to accomplish when those things happened? What were her intentions? If you don’t know, then ask her. I think you already know, and I think part of you understands, but you still need to talk to her about it. You can’t just keep going on like nothing happened. That never works, trust me.”

Raven smirks when she sees Madi roll her eyes in typical Clarke fashion.

The girl’s voice is much lighter when she says, “I think I can do that. Actually, I _know_ I can do that. But what is the thing I’m supposed to remember?”

Ah, smart kid. It makes Raven’s chest fill with pride every time.

“I need you to remember that Clarke loves you more than anyone or anything. That hasn’t changed and it never will. We all make mistakes, Madi, but we never stop learning. We never stop trying. We all love you to bits, you got that?”

Madi salutes her in a way that reminds Raven of Jasper and throws an, “Aye aye, Captain!” her way before turning to head towards the door.

Raven can’t help but laugh when she sees Madi head for the exit, “You sick of this place already after all of my hard work?”

Madi comes crashing into her in one of those hugs that leaves the older woman breathless yet feeling on top of the world.

The words are muttered since they’re said into her chest, but she manages to make them out regardless.

“Thank you, Raven. For everything.”

Raven can feel that smile spread across her face. That smile that only Madi seems to be able to elicit from her. That smile that could power a generator big enough to bring electricity to all of Sanctum and then some.

“Anytime, kid. Anytime. You know that. Now let’s get out of here and go find your mom before they send out the search party,” Raven finishes with a grin on her face. They both know there’s a very real possibility that a search party is already out there.

They step out of the playroom together and are instantly met with calls of both of their names echoing through the forest.

Raven looks down to find Madi shooting a devilish grin up at her, and she’s sure she’s shooting a similar one right back at the kid.

The search party was out in full force, and Clarke Griffin’s voice was leading the charge.

With one last glance to her aunt, Madi takes off in the direction of her mother’s voice after Raven nods her consent.

With Madi disappearing from sight, Raven takes a minute to reach behind to her upper back and give it a few firm pats.

_Damn I’m good._


	5. The Kind That Lasts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a little later than I'd wanted, but I hope the payoff is worth the wait. It felt like a good place to wrap things up with this one.

_“Heroes?! You think I give a shit about being some goddamn hero?! You think Clarke sees herself as a hero?! Goddamnit, Emori, you don’t get it. Nothing – none of this means anything to me without you. I can’t do this shit without you. I refuse to. I put your goddamn consciousness into my own head just to spend my last moments with you. And I’d do it all over again. I’d choose you all over again. Bardo be damned. Our friends be damned. I’d let the world burn around us if it meant I got that one last dance with you. But you were ready to leave me.”_

Emori could only manage to watch helplessly as Murphy stormed away from their little spot on the beach and back in the direction she knew lead to the bunker. She almost got up and followed him. _Almost._ Their fight had taken a toll on her, and one look towards Raven revealed the mechanic looking almost as defeated as Emori felt.

Raven’s eyes finally met hers, all her usual fighting spirit drained from the dark orbs, and just solemnly informed her she was going to herd the highly inebriated duo of Niylah and Echo to their room for the night.

Emori knew the soft smile she gave Raven didn’t reach her eyes, but it was the best she could manage under the circumstances. Words may seem to be failing her right now, but she knew one thing for sure: she didn’t want to be alone. After spending so many years on the ground with no one but her brother, Emori felt like she’d hit the jackpot when she suddenly had six people surrounding her in space.

She became accustomed to having someone around whenever she needed or wanted them to be. Her time in space spoiled her in a lot of ways, and that connection she’d craved with others only increased when they arrived on Sanctum. Playing a false god to adoring strangers made her feel needed and gave her a purpose she never realized she’d wanted. She belonged to something on the Ring, and she belonged to something on Sanctum. She knew she couldn’t bear losing that feeling now that she knew how happy those connections made her.

Emori silently ran through her options in her head. Jackson and Miller were lost in each other on the other side of the beach. Clarke and Madi had gone to bed first, both clinging to the other’s arm like they were about to collapse. She knew from Madi that neither girl was sleeping very well, and this wasn’t something she felt like she could burden them with even if they had been available.

Echo had her arm slung over Niylah as they sang an old Azgeda anthem and staggered behind Raven on the path through the woods. Raven was already eliminated as a confidante here, and Emori felt like the conversation wouldn’t go over any better with Echo since the two women had become so close over the years. Niylah would’ve been ideal; she didn’t really know Emori, but, again, she was currently tripping over her own feet, so that was out as well.

As the sounds of singing dissipated to the point of disappearing, Emori heard a distant crackling sound in the woods behind her. She turned towards the noise and could see smoke billowing atop some trees. She’d had a good idea about who the smoke would lead to, and she shot to her feet to head that way before she lost her nerve.

-

What she found was almost exactly what she’d expected. Octavia, Indra, and Gaia all sat around their own little fire in a small, private clearing deep in the woods. None of the women were speaking, but Emori noted that the silence seemed to be comfortable – each woman looking lost in her own thoughts. She almost hated to disturb them. Again, _almost._

She winced when she saw Gaia jump at her words. “Mind if I join you?”

The former _Fleimkepa_ recovered so quickly that Emori was wondering if she’d just imagined the reaction. The soft smile Octavia donned as she scooted over on a log was all the answer Emori needed before taking a seat next to the woman. Out of the three women before her, she felt the most connected to Indra, but that was mainly due to their experience in Sanctum. Gaia always seemed nice enough, if a bit intense.

Octavia, on the other hand, was the devil she really didn’t know. Maybe devil wasn’t the _best_ term given the _Skairipa’s_ history, but Emori couldn’t think of a better saying at the moment. At least she hadn’t said it aloud or anything. That would’ve made everyone’s night _so_ much worse.

Indra hadn’t looked up from where she was tending to the fire since Emori had appeared, but the younger grounder knew Indra’s words were meant for her. “Murphy finally had enough of that poison?”

Emori’s gaze dropped to the fire before her and fell out of focus as she responded, “More like enough of me, I’m afraid.” She could feel Gaia’s and Octavia’s eyes on her, which made her squirm in her seat a little, but she focused her attention on the stick Indra poked at the burning logs.

Emori wasn’t sure she could handle a lengthy period of silence, so she chose to continue. "I did something – I _requested_ something during the last war that John just found out about. Needless to say, he’s not too happy about it.” _Understatement of the century_ , she thinks.

Octavia mercifully intervenes and makes the conversation seem less one-sided. “Does this have anything to do with what happened to the rest of you while we were trapped in the pit after that explosion?”

Emori can’t manage to meet the other brunette’s eyes as she decides to just dive right in. “I was trapped beneath the remains of a fallen wall that crumbled during the explosion. A piece of newly exposed rod impaled me, and they couldn’t stop the bleeding,” she explains with a long sigh.

This time the silence now carries an air of expectancy to it, and she obliges. “Jackson told me, Raven, and John that he needed the equipment from the lab in Sanctum to help stop the bleeding. Raven found the Anomaly stone buried beneath the floor, _in_ the floor, actually,” Emori feels her lips twitch ever so slightly as she remembers the mechanic’s relentless pursuit of the stone.

“Eventually Jackson and John were pounding away to get to the surface and reveal the symbol’s needed to get to Sanctum while Raven was tasked with keeping me awake. I was dying, and I knew it, but I was the only one who was able to acknowledge that fact.” Her bottom lids feel heavier from the tears she no longer cares to conceal.

Emori takes a steadying breath to try and calm the trembling in her voice. “I told Raven that she needed to input the code for Bardo instead of Sanctum. I told her that she needed to stop Madi from getting to Cadogan and to help our friends. She refused, as Raven does, and she spared just enough time to get us all to Sanctum before heading to Bardo alone.”

Emori closes her eyes before saying what she knows comes next. “I died anyway. We got to Sanctum, and I died anyway. I’d lost too much blood and my heart stopped beating,” she rushes to get the rest out before she can be interrupted, “John put my mind drive into his own head and we were together in my mind space when our consciousnesses transcended. What he did was the only reason I was able to transcend at all.”

She opens her eyes when she hears Octavia’s hushed, “I’m sorry.”

Emori wasn’t sure what reaction she’d been expecting, but it wasn’t that. Not from Octavia, at least.

“Don’t apologize. There’s nothing for you to be sorry for. You all had to help Madi,” Emori catches the way Octavia looks away at those words, “You managed to give the human race an option that didn’t end in total annihilation. That’s something to be damn proud of.”

Octavia’s gaze remains on the dark woods around her as she mutters, “I don’t feel like I have much to be proud of.”

Indra catches the words despite the low tone, and her attention finally shifts from the fire to Octavia. “I’m not going to let anyone sit here and blame themselves over a past none of us can change. In the end, we succeeded, and that’s what matters.”

Octavia, clearly unconvinced, manages to meet Indra’s gaze as she responds. “I look at Hope, Jordan, and Levitt and see three happy, carefree people who seem to carry this innocence about them. An innocence that I lost a long time ago. They explore the world around them with wonder in their eyes, but all I can see is what it was before.”

Octavia releases a breath that seems to carry the weight of the world before she speaks again. “It’s like they’re just discovering the world, whereas I’ve already lived several lifetimes. One under the floor on the Ark, one on the ground, one in the bunker, one in Skrying, and now one last one that’s lead me here – to a place where I can’t seem to find where I belong.”

The older woman’s voice is sharp as she commands the attention of everyone around her. “We’re all trying to figure out where we belong in this new world, Octavia. I spent the entirety of my life becoming the best warrior I could be all because I felt I had something to make up for – something to prove after my mother knelt before the Dark Commander. I felt that I needed to make up for her weaknesses by eliminating any of my own. I recognized the same desire in you that night I made you my _Seken_. My only purposes were being a warrior and grooming you, so I watched as you were stripped of what you loved and primed to become the next greatest warrior – primed to become as inhuman as I had become.”

Gaia’s quiet sob broke through the atmosphere, but Emori couldn’t bring herself to move to comfort the woman. She looked towards Octavia and realized the younger warrior hadn’t even noticed the disruption; her focus completely immersed in what Indra had to say.

“I had never understood why my mother knelt. All I knew was the shame it brought to me and my family. I swore to never kneel to that demon, yet I was by his side when Clarke and Raven returned to Sanctum. I had been prepared to die in _solo gonplei_ , but Madi clearly had other plans. The moment I saw the tip of his spear at her neck, I didn’t even think – I just dropped. I dropped to my knees with the same desperation I remembered my mother having, and I offered my loyalty in return for sparing her life. I’d kneel all over again if it meant sparing her.” Nobody dared draw attention to the tear that made its way down Indra’s cheek.

Emori looked to a crying Gaia and then to a silent Octavia and knew she’d have to be the one to break the tension that suffocatingly blanketed the group. “I’m sorry about that, by the way. I’m not sorry that Madi saved your life, but I am sorry that we let her slip away from us like that.”

Indra shocks everyone as her laugh carries out into the night, “I think we all know well enough by now that there’s little to no way of stopping a Griffin on a mission.” The amusement in her tone is enough to get the three women around her smiling.

Gaia finally finds her voice as she adds her own struggles to the mix. “I spent my life running from the way of the warrior – my mother’s way,” the way Gaia meets Indra’s gaze is one of the bravest things Emori’s ever seen, “and tried to carve a path of my own. A path shouldered on the back of my faith in something that no longer exists. Don’t misunderstand, I am grateful for this second chance, but we all seem to be a little out of place here. We’re all looking for something new to believe in – something to belong to.”

It’s Indra who makes the next bold proclamation, “We belong to one another. We believe in this family and in the here and now,” she finishes with finality in her words.

The tone does nothing to stop Octavia from voicing her protest. “No, we don’t _just_ believe in the here and now,” her eyes determinedly scan each woman’s face before she adds, “We believe that when each of us departs on our final journey, we _will_ meet again.”

Emori sees Gaia’s forehead crinkle in confusion, and she imagines her own expression can’t be much different. Indra wears an understanding look on her face that Emori can’t help but envy.

Octavia eyes Gaia and Emori as she explains, “Look, Gabriel is one of the smartest people I’ve ever known, and his last words were ‘ _Death is Life.’_ I don’t think he would’ve made that the mantra for his people had he not believed it with everything in him. We’ve spent generations in space giving _The Traveler’s Blessing_ to those on death’s door, always finishing with ‘ _May we meet again.’_ There’s got to be something behind those sayings. We have to _choose_ to believe what we’ve been saying all these years and that we _will_ meet again upon our final journey. Everyone we’ve said goodbye to – all of us here – we _will_ meet again.”

Emori finds herself nodding passionately as she hears Gaia say, “It doesn’t end here.”

Indra looks every bit the warrior again as her gaze flits amongst the three women around her. “You’re damn right it doesn’t,” she says with a finality that Octavia can’t contest this time.

Despite Emori having long since become accustomed to having company, she’s never quite felt as connected to anything as she does right now. She looks around and sees renewed purpose and life on the faces around her, and that only fans the flames of a faith that’s burning bright within herself.

Flames that can't be extinguished by the distant calls she hears for Madi and Raven as they carry out into the night.

-

Clarke looks to Murphy one last time, letting his courage in opening his door provide her with her own courage to open the one before her. Her sense of purpose and rekindled determination fall immediately as she takes in the room around her.

Dark and empty. No Raven. No Madi.

Any control she’d felt after her talk with Murphy instantly gave way to the familiar feeling of panic as she turned on her heel and marched towards Murphy’s open doorway. Right before she reached it, he popped out of the room with a look that told the blonde he had been met by an empty room as well.

She really must’ve looked like shit because, despite Murphy’s obvious anxiety at the situation, he took it upon himself to take a breath and take control.

His voice was way more even than hers would’ve been as he says, “I last left Emori back at the bonfire on the beach. You left The Hobbit with Raven, right? Madi wasn’t alone, right?”

Intense blue eyes meet panicked ones as she only manages a weak nod in response.

“Okay, so Emori is most likely still at the beach or somewhere in the woods with the others. Raven definitely wouldn’t leave Madi alone,” he shoots Clarke a look of certainty before confidently adding, “You and I both know she’d never do that, so obviously Madi is with Raven. That’s a good thing.”

She’s pretty sure he’s added that last bit for both of their sakes. If she weren’t so worried right now, she might actually be touched at just how much Murphy obviously cares for her daughter. He truly loves the girl, and Clarke vows to thank him for that literally _any_ other time after Madi’s safely located.

Murphy jogs with a purpose towards the closest exit with Clarke right on his heels, suppressing the urge to scream Madi’s name before they’ve even reached the outdoors. They had spared quick glances in the other rooms to find nothing but two sleeping boys and two passed out women before agreeing Emori and Madi likely weren’t in the bunker.

Clarke is almost proud of the fact that she doesn’t call out for Madi until Murphy’s opened the last door that leads out into the dark of night. Madi’s name leaves both of their mouths first before Murphy calls for Emori and Clarke for Raven.

“Should we split up?” Clarke’s got that “mom-on-a-mission” edge to her voice that causes Murphy to grin before answering, “It’s dark as shit out here and we only have one flashlight. We’ll cover more ground together.”

The blonde reminds herself to thank Murphy for a lot of things later because his control over his emotions right now is maybe the only thing keeping her sane at this moment. They both continue calling into the night before they hear footsteps approaching. Murphy sighs in relief when he catches sight of Emori included in the group with Octavia, Indra, and Gaia.

Clarke visibly deflates at the sight – her nerves shooting through the roof at the realization that Raven and Madi are likely off somewhere alone after Gaia informs them that Jackson and Miller are the only ones at the beach.

Murphy shoots a knowing look Clarke’s way, but Clarke beats him to the punch. “Go, Murphy. I’ll be fine. Use Octavia’s flashlight to light your way back to the bunker and I’ll find Madi.”

The indignant look that flashes across his face leads the way to his protest. “You’re not going out there alone, Clarke. We’re coming with you to find them both,” he finishes with incredulity.

Octavia’s voice cuts through for the first time, “You’re right, Murphy, she’s not going out there alone. I’ll be with her.” Octavia’s tone leaves no room for argument as she quickly hands her flashlight to Emori and suggests Gaia and Indra check the beach, just in case.

Clarke, Octavia, Murphy, and Emori all watch for a moment as Gaia and Indra head down the path towards the beach, the torch in Indra’s hand guiding their way.

Murphy turns back to Clarke, his eyes narrowing on the blonde before saying, “Are you sure about this? Emori and I can tag along. Ya know, strength in numbers and all that,” he finishes with a careless wave of his hand.

Octavia, much like Murphy had before, has seemingly taken charge of the situation and answers for Clarke. “We’ll be fine, Murphy. Go spend some time with Emori.” Octavia can’t help but smirk as Murphy’s eyes widen at the implication before he turns to his girlfriend with a nod and they head back towards the bunker.

Octavia turns to see Clarke, flashlight beaming wildly around the forest in her jittery hand, already making her way out of the little clearing and calling Madi’s name out into the night. The familiarity of the situation settles into the brunette’s chest in a way that makes her feel sick.

 _Let’s not go there, Octavia,_ she tells herself before jogging to catch up to Clarke’s quickly disappearing form.

They travel side-by-side to evenly distribute the light between them as they continue to yell out for the young girl and the mechanic. Octavia feels Clarke bristle beside her and immediately follows suit out of pure instinct as they both hear the thumps of careless feet getting closer.

The brunette automatically takes a defensive stance right before she audibly sighs in relief at the sight of Madi pushing past the last remaining branches that stand between the girl and her mother. Octavia watches with a relieved smile as Madi invites a hesitant Clarke to embrace her, the flashlight dropping unceremoniously to the ground as Clarke scrambles to take her child into her arms.

Octavia hears more clumsy footsteps sound from behind Clarke and Madi and shifts her gaze just in time to see Raven join the group, the mechanic’s eyes locking on to Clarke and Madi’s embrace with a smile of her own.

That doesn’t stop her from ruining the moment, though. “I hate to break this up, but I’m freezing my ass off right now. Seriously, my nipples could cut through tree bark. Can we take this inside?” Raven’s arms are crossed tightly in front of her chest and her teeth are starting to chatter as if trying to emphasize her point.

Octavia’s head falls back as she barks out a laugh before moving to herd the embracing Madi and Clarke towards the bunker, Madi’s soft giggles echoing over the group the whole way back.

-

Once they’ve reached the bunker, Raven exaggeratedly heaves the door open and all but dives in first as she motions for everyone to hurry up so she can slam the door on the cold outside. Octavia watches as the mechanic rubs her hands together before looking to her and Clarke and saying, “I’m calling an audible. Family meeting at the beach in one hour. Dress appropriately, meaning not like me,” Raven gestures down to her tank top, booty shorts, and boots, “and tell whoever gets there first to have that fire roaring.”

Madi’s question comes out before Clarke or Octavia can shake their confusion. “What’s an audible?” The child’s forehead has that little crease in it that it gets whenever she’s concentrating or confused, and Octavia can’t help but think about how freaking cute it is as she listens to Raven’s response.

“Seriously, Clarke? Six years on Earth and no mention of football?” Raven asks exasperatedly before turning to her niece, “I’ll tell ya later. Just make sure you dress warm for the meeting in an hour. I’ll swing by your room around then so we can go together.”

Clarke’s head is shaking in disbelief and opposition. “Raven, it’s the middle of the night and it’s freezing. Can’t it wait until morning?”

Octavia answers for Raven this time. “Actually, Clarke, I think a family meeting is necessary if any of us actually want to get decent sleep anytime soon. Besides, it’s not like we’re on a schedule or anything,” Octavia adds as an afterthought.

Raven’s face breaks into a triumphant grin as she says, “Exactly! We need this. So, again, be dressed appropriately and I’ll see you in an hour,” the mechanic turns with a wave and heads to her room.

Octavia smirks when she hears Clarke mumble an “Alrighty then” before turning away from the blonde. The brunette makes to head towards her own room when Clarke catches her arm and asks the woman if she’d mind waiting around for a bit.

She catches the way Clarke jerks her head towards Madi and feels her own eyes slide towards the girl who’s looking at Octavia with a mixture of apprehension and uncertainty in her impossibly bright eyes.

Octavia only nods her assent and makes her way over to the wall opposite Clarke and Madi’s door, backing against the wall when she reaches it and sliding down to the floor as she draws her knees towards her chest and waits.

-

Clarke watches Octavia slide down to the floor as she gently closes the door and takes a breath. Her relief at finding Madi and her elation at being able to hold the girl quickly morphing back into a knot of anxiety that settles like a brick in her stomach.

By the time Clarke turns around, Madi is seated on one of the unused bottom bunks, eyeing Clarke with what the mother recognizes as determination and just a touch of fear.

Seeing that hint of fear in her baby’s eyes makes Clarke feel sick all over again.

Madi spares her from having to be the first to speak. “I want to go first, Clarke. I _need_ to go first. And I need for you to just listen and wait for me to finish, okay? _Please_ ,” the girl adds imploringly.

Clarke hears it for the plea that it is and rapidly nods in agreement, her silence serving as the child’s cue to continue.

“I see you – well, you and Octavia – in my sleep sometimes. Kind of like when I would have those nightmares back when I had the Flame. To me, they seemed like nightmares, but they were actually memories, remember?” Madi asks unnecessarily in a ramble.

Clarke simply nods her head twice in acknowledgement, of _course_ she remembers. Madi’s cries during those nightmares had broken her heart to the point where the mother was in tears herself. She’d never forget the feeling of helplessness she had when Madi had that first nightmare in the back of the rover as they headed back to Shallow Valley. That incident had shaken Clarke to her core. It’s what willed her foot down on the gas pedal whenever doubt started to creep in about her exit from Polis.

Madi’s rushed words break through the blonde’s thoughts. “It’s just like that, only I know these memories are _my_ memories and not some secondhand thing. All I can hear is you humming and telling me not to be scared as the gun clicks. All I can see is your face hovering above mine as Octavia is positioned somewhere below me.” The girl takes a deep breath in an obvious attempt to settle her own nerves.

Clarke just patiently waits for the girl to continue even though everything in her wants to scream at the cruel hand that had been dealt to her child.

“I can hear everything that’s happening, and I can see you, and I’m trying to scream out that it’s me – that I’m still in there, but no sound ever comes out.” The tears that make their way down her daughter’s pale cheeks have Clarke’s throat bobbing violently, but all she can do is listen. She briefly wonders if this is what her daughter felt in that moment back on Bardo. The moment that seems to have changed everything.

“When I woke up tonight and – and saw you standing above me – hearing you say it was all okay – it was like being back _there_ all over again,” Madi finishes, her voice shaking on the last few words.

Clarke doesn’t need the girl to explain where _there_ is. She is painfully aware of the exact time and place her child is referring to. It’s the place her child would be stuck in whenever the little girl closed her eyes only to wake and find her former source of comfort hovering over her like the _Angel of Death_ once again.

Clarke tries with everything in her not to cry out, but the sob that rips from her lungs could no longer be swallowed. She clamps one hand and then another over her mouth in a last ditch attempt to stifle the noise, but she realizes how hopeless the action is when a forced breath escapes her nose and her whole body gives way to gut wrenching sobs. All she can do now is lower herself to the floor as she doubles over and try and manage to take ragged breaths in between wails.

She hears herself cry _“I’m so sorry”_ repeatedly as small arms wrap around her shaking frame, her drenched face dropping onto the mop of long dark hair that covers her daughter’s scalp. She can’t even manage to return the embrace; she doesn’t feel she deserves to, but she still allows the feeling of her daughter’s warmth provide her with the comfort she needs to calm down.

It takes her several minutes, and she’s sure she’s woken up everyone in the bunker by now, but that is the last thing on her mind as she draws in breaths that finally aren’t choked gasps for air.

Clarke runs her hand over the top of her daughter’s soaked head, allowing her fingers to run down the course of the long, silky mane. She knows she doesn’t deserve to provide this act of comfort, but she needs it to get through what’s coming next.

She draws in one final breath and tries to steady her voice. “I once told you that I would _always_ protect you, and I meant every word of that.” She feels Madi shift in her embrace at the words.

Clarke meets the girl’s eyes as she continues, “The problem is that we suddenly lived in a world where I didn’t know _how_ to protect you.” She brings her hand up to wipe a tear from one of her daughter’s swollen cheeks. “We were thrown into these situations where you were in so much danger at every turn, and all I could think about was that I had to protect you…no matter what that protection looked like.”

Clarke uses her other hand to wipe uselessly at her own cheeks, her voice trembling as she releases a shaky breath. “You were _so_ determined to put yourself in dangerous situations, and I – I wasn’t prepared for that. I wasn’t prepared to have to protect you from yourself on top of everything else,” Clarke says honestly.

“My mom pointed out the lengths she took to protect me, but I still couldn’t see it the same way because I was nearly eighteen and you’re _barely_ twelve, Madi. You’re still so little despite everything you’ve been through.”

Clarke’s head drops back to collide with the metal frame of the bunk behind her, the pain in her head not even registering as she thought of what to say next. She chanced a glance over at Madi, the girl still watching her intently as fat tears rolled down her cheeks in earnest.

Clarke wishes she hadn’t looked over, because her composure feels like it’s about to crack all over again.

She wills herself to continue past the croak in her voice. “I made mistakes. _So_ many mistakes, Madi. You know it; I know it. Everyone knows it. I told myself that the shock collar hurt me more than it hurt you because at the time I could’ve sworn that was the truth. I felt like I was being ripped apart from the inside out and that it couldn’t possibly be worse for you. But I look at you now and see just how _wrong_ I was. I’m _so_ sorry about _so_ many things, Madi,” she finishes in a whisper.

Her tone remains low as she says, “But one thing I’ll never be sorry for is trying to protect you.”

Madi’s eyes widen at the statement, and Clarke wonders for a minute if the girl is going to protest, but she simply watches her mother like she’s waiting for more. Under different circumstances, Clarke would’ve smiled at how well her daughter knows her.

She eyes her child with an intensity as she speaks. “I’m sorry about _how_ I’ve gone about trying to protect you in the past, Madi, but I’ll never stop trying to protect you. My mom tried to tell me that a long time ago, and I didn’t truly understand what she was saying until you ran off to a place where I couldn’t immediately follow.”

Clarke knows her voice is cracking every other word and her breathing is shallow again, but she has to finish. She has to get this out to try and help her daughter understand. She’s trying to get her breathing back under control when she hears a little voice sound from beside her.

“But you were right this time, Clarke. I didn’t realize it until I was in that chair and could feel what Becca felt in those memories about Judgement Day. That’s how I ended up the way that I did; I knew I had to fight to keep the code away from Cadogan, but I wasn’t strong enough in the end.” Madi trails off with a hiccup and breaks out into her own sobs, much to Clarke’s horror.

Seeing her daughter break like this awakens every maternal instinct she has as her own breathing evens out and her voice carries with a renewed strength. “Hey, no, look at me,” she reaches out with both hands to gently cradle either side of her daughter’s face. “Everything worked out, okay? Baby, you did everything you could. _Nothing_ was your fault, okay?”

Madi sniffles pitifully and says, “That’s what Raven said.”

Clarke can’t help but to laugh at that. “Well, we all know what a genius Raven is, so whatever she said is probably right.” Her heart soars just a little at the way the corners of Madi’s lips curl upwards at the statement.

Clarke continues with more confidence than she thought she could manage. “Madi, I can’t go back and change what I did. I – I wouldn’t have been able to leave you there so vulnerable like that. I am _so_ sorry for the way it’s affected you, though. I _never_ wanted that, Madi. If you never believe another word I say, if you never trust another thing, I need you to believe and trust that,” Clarke finishes softly.

Madi returns Clarke’s intense gaze with one of her own, the child’s voice even as she responds. “I’m not mad at you, Clarke. I was mad when you put the collar on me and pulled the trigger. I was mad when you killed Bellamy because of me. I was mad when you said we had to get an army and go to war again. All of that anger went away when I realized why you did what you did. I wasn’t mad at you anymore – I was mad at myself for not listening. But by then it was too late. I’d already had the stroke.”

Clarke opened her mouth to reply but was immediately cut off by her daughter. “I’m really not mad, Clarke. I’m just scared. Maybe that’s not the right word, but I don’t know how else to put it. During the day I know that you love me and would never intentionally hurt me, but my brain doesn’t seem to get that message when I’m asleep. I just keep reliving it, and right now I’m not sure how to get it to stop.”

The uncertainty in her daughter’s voice once again threatens to make her feel like a failure as a mother, but there’s no time for that right now. Regardless of what kind of mother she thinks she is, she’s a mother whose child is fragile and in need of all the attention and understanding she can muster right now.

Clarke pauses for a moment to search for the right words to say. In the end she opts not to say anything at all. She eyes her daughter for a moment before reaching for the back of the girl’s head and pulling her in close. She rests her chin on Madi’s small shoulder as she feels the girl bury her little face into her neck – wetness meeting her skin from the child’s runny nose and teary eyes – but she just squeezes the girl tighter.

Clarke smiles when she feels her daughter squeeze back with all the might the child can muster. She cradles her head and rocks them back and forth on the floor like she’s done so many times before, relief flooding every fiber of her being with each familiar movement Madi allows her to make.

They were going to be alright, that much she knew. She would see Madi through this every night for the rest of her life if she had to. She also made a silent vow to herself to allow, and even encourage, Madi to seek comfort from those who make the girl feel safe if Clarke ever fails to provide that feeling for her. What mattered most was that her daughter felt safe and loved as much as possible, and Clarke had to accept the fact that it wasn’t just the two of them against the world anymore – even if Clarke’s entire world still revolved around Madi.

The rest of the world fell away again when she heard an _“Ai hod yu in, mom,”_ muffled into her neck.

Clarke may not have always known how to go about protecting her daughter, but she’d always known how to love her. Loving her had always been the easiest, and best, thing Clarke had ever done. “I love you too, Madi. More than anything in any world out there.”

-

Octavia had forced herself to remain in her spot through the wails she heard on the other side of Clarke’s door. She swore to herself she wouldn’t interfere unless absolutely necessary. Like _oh shit someone is in physical danger_ necessary, which she knew she didn’t have to worry about with Clarke and Madi.

What finally got her to break her promise to herself was when she heard rumblings from the other rooms and looked to the clock Raven had placed at the end of the hallway. It had been about 45 minutes since the mechanic had made her 1-hour announcement. Octavia, wanting to ensure Clarke and Madi would be ready in time, chanced a knock on the door before entering. What she saw made her wish she never had to interrupt the two.

Clarke’s back was leaned against a bunk as she sat on the floor with Madi curled in her lap, both sets of arms tightly wound around one another while the mother rocked the two back and forth. Octavia contemplated shutting the door and telling Raven to just give them a debriefing later, but Clarke’s voice pulled her from those thoughts.

“Please come in, Octavia,” the blonde called softly, “Thank you so much for waiting.”

Octavia gives her a single nod in return before Clarke motions for the brunette to close the door behind her. Octavia shuts it with a gentle thud and tentatively lowers herself onto the bunk Clarke gestures to.

When Octavia has finally managed to ease herself down enough to not look uncomfortable, she hears Clarke whisper Madi’s name and looks to see the blonde gently stroking the girl’s cheek. Madi’s red-rimmed eyes and puffy cheeks turn towards the older brunette, and Octavia swallows thickly to try and keep her emotions at bay.

Clarke, after a small nod from Madi, is the one to speak. “She sees us in her sleep sometimes, Octavia. She sees us on Bardo.”

The pointed look Clarke shoots her isn’t even needed. She knows exactly what Clarke is talking about. It’s something that’s haunted her own dreams some nights. Something she’d never truly forget. _Blodreina_ had felt like a monster many times before, but nothing quite compared to cocking a gun and pointing it at the heart of a defenseless child. Not even _eat or die_.

She had to take a deep breath to stop herself from shuddering at the memory.

“I guess I’ve been a pretty big disappointment to you after all these years, huh?” Octavia says quietly. Madi just turns her head back towards her and blinks in confusion, evidently too exhausted to make the cute little crease of curiosity in her forehead.

“You spent six years hearing all of these stories about ‘the girl under the floor who saved the human race,’” Octavia adds air quotes around the title she feels she doesn’t deserve. “I remember the way you looked at me the first time we met. It was the same look Hope had whenever I mentioned Murphy when she was little. Yes, Murphy was her favorite, believe it or not,” Octavia finishes with a light chuckle.

Madi just nods her head, brows furrowing in seriousness, and says, “I can see that for sure.”

Octavia internally winces at the look on the girl’s face, like the child wishes she had thought to make Murphy her favorite as well. The older woman didn’t expect a thought as trivial as that to hurt so much.

The older brunette continued in a soft tone, “I need you to know how sorry I am, Madi, for all of it. Especially for what I did to you in Polis. I know you see what happened on Bardo in your dreams, but I see Polis in mine. What I did to you, the way I used you…the danger I put you in all in the name of power and keeping _Wanheda_ ,” she sees Clarke tense at the name, “in check is at the top of my very long list of regrets.”

Madi just continues to watch her; the child’s expression remaining unchanged and unreadable. It’s almost unnerving to the point of having a calming effect.

“Anyway, I just need you to know that what I did to you then and everything you’ve seen from Polis to Bardo – that wasn’t me. At least it’s not the me I’ve been able to rediscover. And, if you’ll give me the chance,” she can feel her hands wringing with nerves, “I’d like nothing more than a chance to show you the real me – to have the chance at being the hero you deserve – even if it’s a little later than you’d hoped,” Octavia gets out in a rush, feeling flustered at her own growing anxiety.

The same anxiety that melts away not a moment later when the small girl smiles, grabs her hand with the one that’s not holding tight to her mother’s, and leads both women towards the door.

“Raven is coming to get us for the family meeting,” the girl explains, “and she promised we’re walking there as a family, so you both need to get dressed before she lectures me for not reminding you.” The girl finishes with all the seriousness a child her age can muster, and she can feel herself losing the battle against her desire to laugh. Clarke’s laugh echoing through the room tells her the blonde’s already lost that battle.

Octavia smirks to cover her amusement and just mock salutes the young girl before heading to her own room to dress _appropriately._

-

Twenty minutes later, Raven, Clarke, Madi, Octavia, Murphy, and Emori all break through the clearing to the beach, the rest of the group having already been waiting for them with a roaring fire, per Raven’s instructions.

Raven, smirking satisfactorily at the sight, claps her hands together in front of her chest before speaking. “Alright, gang, thank you all for coming. It’s time to call our first _official_ Earth family meeting to order.” The mechanic moves her hands to rest on her hips as she reaches the bonfire.

Murphy, ever the morning person, grumbles, “Yeah, yeah, Reyes. Just get to the point and tell us why you insisted on dragging us out here in the middle of the night.”

She ignores the way her two roommates mumble in agreement with Murphy’s words. “Well, Murphy, I’m glad you said that,” Raven chirps with mock enthusiasm, “because I’m here to tell all of you to get your heads out of your asses and start actually _living_.”

Echo gestures to herself and Niylah, remarking about how the two of them have been doing _plenty_ of _living_ recently. Raven just huffs and informs them that getting blackout drunk isn’t actually _living_.

“Says who?” Niylah snaps accusatorily.

Raven, again opting to ignore her roommates, explains, “I know there are some of us here who think we don’t deserve happiness,” she looks pointedly over to where Octavia, Clarke, and Murphy stand, “but I think what we can _all_ agree on is that there are those among us who deserve all the happiness in the world.” Ravens eyes float from Hope to Jordan to Luca and then Rex before settling on Madi.

The silence that ensues only encourages Raven to continue. “And those of us who are stuck in the past or are standing in the way of our own happiness because we think we don’t deserve it, well, we need to get over ourselves. We need to suck it up and let ourselves be happy anyway for those around us who deserve all of that happiness and then some. The kind of happiness that lasts – not the kind we’re used to that comes with fine print and several asterisks behind it.”

Indra, oddly enough, is the one to speak up in agreement. “We actually had a discussion tonight about belief and belonging. We established that all of us, as a family, belong to one another. We belong to the here and now. But, with that said, we also agreed to believe in something new – something I think would benefit us all.”

“I knew I liked you for a reason,” Raven enthuses, “You’re just full of surprises and I love it! Okay, so what’s this belief? I mean I’m already on board, but not everyone is as enlightened as I am,” she finishes with her signature cocky grin and a quirked eyebrow.

Octavia takes over the explanation for Indra. “Gabriel was one of the smartest people we’ve known, wouldn’t you agree?” She looks to Echo and Hope who nod sadly in agreement before continuing, “And his last words were _‘Death is life,’_ which meant so much to him that he made it the motto for his people. Gabriel wouldn’t do that unless he truly _believed_ what he was saying. He was ready to die because he believed there was something more after this life.”

Octavia scanned the group to make sure she wasn’t losing anyone. “On the Ark, we spent generations delivering _The Traveler’s Blessing_ to those who were about to die, always finishing it with _‘May we meet again.’_ ” Octavia looked towards Miller and Jackson and then Clarke, Raven, and Murphy to find understanding written across each of their faces.

That understanding is what allowed her to finish her explanation. “Instead of thinking we spent all those years saying shit we refuse to believe is possible, we should _choose_ to believe that we _will_ meet again, that death is life, and that it doesn’t end here. When we each take our final journey, we’ll have faith that we’ll see those we’ve lost, and all be reunited with one another for whatever comes next.”

Raven can feel tears threatening to spill as she looks around the group and calls out, “All in favor?” She raises her own hand as high as it will go and smiles as she sees not a single member without their hand raised.

The mechanic nods her head, feeling satisfied and reinvigorated. “Motion passes! We’re going to allow ourselves to be happy, belong to one another, and have faith that we will all meet again on whatever the hell is on the other side to all of this!” She gestures widely to the open beach around them.

Madi, ever the demanding little optimist, calls out for a group hug, and finds herself the center of said hug, giggling like crazy at all of the action.

Clarke looks to Murphy, whose arm is holding tight to Emori’s waist as his free hand tickles Madi’s side, and asks in between her fits of giggles, “Can you believe we tried to hide from all of this?”

Murphy smirks over Madi’s head and says, “There never was any hiding from all of this, Clarke. We were just dumb enough to waste time trying.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it! If you haven't already, check out "All Over Again." That's my other multi-chapter story that will hopefully have a lot more chapters than this one. 
> 
> Thank you all again, and remember to feel free to comment or message me with any prompts you have for the "Life on Earth" series. :)

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what ya think, what your favorite parts are, and if you have any prompt ideas you'd like me to write in line with this series. I also want to eventually start another series focusing on Clarke and Madi's time in Shallow Valley.


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